Chapter Seven

 

MAYA BROOMFIELD opened the door of her flat to see this large figure standing in front of her waving a pencil in the air. He bowed low and took off his trilby.

“Yes, what is it your after?” asked Maya, pulling her house coat around her carefully, as she had some idea it was something to do with the incident that had occurred in her flat on the previous weekend.

“Just a few questions, if you don’t mind, Madam. My name is Gardner, Inspector Reginald Arthur Gardner, member of the Metropolitan police, plain clothes section, I hasten to add, but you can call me Reggie”

“Bloody considerate of you, I’m sure,” added Maya as she stepped aside to let the visitor into her flat. Maya knew it would be impossible to tell the visitor to get the hell out of it, as she stood aside and allowed him to pass her and walk into the lounge.

“Nice place you have here, Mrs. Broomfield. I wouldn’t say no to a cup of coffee and may I call you Maya?”

“You’ve got a bloody cheek, I’ll say that for you Inspector,” Maya snapped,

“What was it you said your name was again?”

“Gardner, Ma’am ... Reggie Gardner, but you can . . .”

“Yes ... yes, I know all that old jargon. I’ve heard it all before. Now what was it you wanted to know because I’m just about to nip down to the chemist to get something for this …”

Maya pointed to her black eye and some bruising on her right cheek.

“Well, it looks as though you’ve been in some sort of a fight. Doesn’t it now,” said Reggie with a grin, but Maya was not amused, nor had she any intention of laughing.

“You know what it is,” she barked and scowled simultaneously, “and I want to get dressed when you’ve finished your interrogation ... if you don’t mind.” she grunted.

“Three sugars but just a little milk,” added Reggie, ignoring Maya deliberately and knowing full well that she was annoyed at his request…”Didn’t you get some treatment at the hospital for that?” Reggie went on, but Maya snubbed his remark and told him she wasn’t going to the chemist to get medicine or ointment, but to get some make-up to hide the marks on her face.

“You won’t need a lot of mascara for that right eye, will you?” said Reggie and Maya sneered again.

“Get on with that you have to do, or you might need more than mascara on both your eyes INSPECTOR,” she snarled.

Reggie smiled. He liked a woman with spirit, but he wasn’t at Maya’s flat to admire her wit …or for a cup of anything, but information… She poured Reggie some coffee from a percolator and sat down opposite him, running her hands across her thighs as she crossed her legs provocatively, being careful to adjust her house coat to show just as much of her anatomy, as she intended He sat down and crossed his legs with a sigh as if he was more comfortable in that position.

“The sugar’s there. Help yourself,” she added, but her voice was anything but inviting…

“Now then, it’s about William ... Just William,” he smiled as he supposed she recognized that he was making a pun …“That’s the subject of my visit. You know William of course?” he asked and Maya nodded.

“He’s a friend of mine,” she said in a soft voice as Reggie helped himself to the sugar.

“A very good friend, I hasten to add, MAYA ... I can call you Maya, yes?”

Again Maya nodded and Reggie continued …“A friend who would go out of his way to protect you from harm, would you agree. A friend who might even kill for you, if need be.” Reggie added as he sipped his drink slowly.

Maya sat upright in her chair and her eyes were ablaze.

“Oh Fuck! ... Is he dead? Is Bingham dead,” she asked nervously and her hands shook “It was Billy-Boy who did it. I never touched him.” Maya went on nervously …”Dave went out like a light when he hit him. I never did anything. I swear I didn’t. I don‘t remember anything about it.”

Reggie Gardner stopped smiling when she said that.

“You don‘t remember anything about it and yet you could remember that it was your friend William who hit this man, Dave and that he went out like a light and best of all, that you had nothing to do with it ... How strange, don’t you think? Strange that you can remember some things and not others, isn‘t it?” he said as he raised his eyebrows in surprise over what Maya Broomfield had said. Apparently she hadn’t heard the latest that Dave Bingham was still in hospital suffering from a drugs overdose and he decided to leave that information for a future enquiry, but he was nevertheless surprised that Maya should accuse her young lover of so much violence ... Was this what she would describe as LOVE? Had her maternal instinct abandoned her suddenly?

“Tell me what happened?” he asked and leant forwards with his coffee mug in his hands to await the story that he knew would be interesting, to say the least. Maya Broomfield looked lost for a few moments and tried to collect her thoughts as she shook her head violently from side to side.

“I hope he’s not dead,” she repeated, “I would hate for Billy-Boy to be in trouble because of that ... that big bastard … I don’t know why the hell Billy-Boy came back that evening, but I suppose I should be grateful, or I might be more seriously injured than I was.”

“You didn’t know he was coming then, did you?”

“No ... I had told him to go; ... to leave my flat and never come back. That was about three weeks before. We had a row, you see. He was very forceful and insolent at times.”

Gardner was even more surprised at that reference to William ... or Billy-Boy as he had now resolved to call him. Well Billy- Boy sounded a little bit better than William anyway, although hardly a choice pseudonym, he thought, but he had hardy imagined that Maya Broomfield would have seriously complained about her young lover being forceful ... Insolent, perhaps ... most young men could be described as that, but not forceful. That would surely have added to her exotic pleasures.

“It sounds as if Billy-Boy was a very ‘close’ friend, Maya.”

Maya Broomfield closed her eyes for a second before she opened them again to admire her nails.

“You bastard,” she snapped, as she stared at the floor. “You know of our relationship, don’t you? So why the bloody hell pretend?”

Reggie cocked his head to one side and sighed heavily as he pretended to be shocked. How could he answer that question other than to ask Maya again if William Bright, alias Billy-Boy was indeed her very own toy-boy …”

“You fancied him then?” he asked.

“Like as hell I did, but that’s all over now. I don’t want to be involved in any killing.”

Reggie decided to play along and say nothing of David Bingham’s fate until later on in his enquiries.

“But you never asked him to leave the keys of your flat ... did you Maya and I think you would have been insistent on that if you really didn’t want to see him again ... don’t you agree?” ... Maya hung her head when Reggie mentioned the keys. “Don’t you think that proves that the Billy-Boy loved you when he would go to that length to protect you?”

Maya stretched her legs out as she touched her breast.

“He loved me ... O.K. Well that’s what he said, but that was all shit.”

“SHIT?” shouted Gardner, “How can you call any kind of love shit?”

“He was too young to know anything about love. He got what he wanted here and he didn’t have to pay for it. He was a dreamer, was that boy. So he‘s got nothing to complain about and anyway, I didn‘t want all the trash that went with the sex I had with him. I never asked him to write those bloody letters, did I?”

“Letters . . . what letters are those?” asked Gardner and Maya held her breath for a moment as she hesitated to answer.

“Its nothing …nothing at all,” Maya tried to explain, as she felt she had already said too much. “Just silly little childish notes he wrote to me from time to time. It’s nothing I tell you.”

“He really must have thought a lot about you then, Maya ... I’m sure you must think that, especially now and anyway, it would have been easier for Billy-Boy to write letters to you rather than talk ... as he had a bad stutter and that must have deterred him a lot in his loving conversations, don’t you think?”

Maya looked surprised when Gardner said that.

“Stutter ... I don’t know what you’re talking about. Billy-Boy never stuttered when he was with me,” she snapped and Gardner raised his eyebrows in surprise as his mind went into fourth gear . . . Perhaps such was the power of love after all, he thought.

“And you got what you wanted too Maya, did you not; a young fresh boy to play with and to amuse you?”

Maya sighed and her eyes looked glazed. Whatever Billy-Boy meant to her, or however she tried to explain their relationship, he seemed to be having some sort of effect on his lady at that moment. She wet her lips and a slow smile crossed her face.

“He was quite a young stallion at times,” she said, as if she was talking to herself and there was no one else around to hear what she said. “My favourite lollipop,” she moaned.

“So there was more than one, then?”

“What? More than one what?” she demanded as she threw her hair back from her forehead.

`“Lollipops . . . “Reggie repeated, “You did say favourite lollipop didn’t you Maya …so I presumed you had more than one …”

Maya lay back in her chair, obviously immune to anything else around her. She did not answer and Reggie Gardner knew there was nothing more he could ask Maya Broomfield about her loves which now seemed certainly to be in the ‘plural’ and particularly about her young lover boy as she appeared to swoon at the very mention of his name. He already knew how they met and all there was to do with the association apart from the actual love-making and he was sure Maya would avoid talking about that, at all costs and besides, it would lead nowhere. Anyone could have guessed what type of woman this dentist lady was, apart from her work on peoples’ dentures and he decided to call it a day and let her sweat about the news of her other lover until she contacted the police or the hospital. Whatever happened, Reggie knew she would not accept any responsibility for this man David Bingham being at her flat. It didn’t seem to worry Maya very much that David Bingham was dead ... She was more concerned about the publicity it might cause to ruin her reputation as a Dental Surgeon. There was more work in dentistry and there were other assets that suited Maya Broomfield, that she didn’t want to talk about. Reggie knew what kind of man he was dealing with in this Bingham chap and he felt sure that Maya knew more than she would say about him too. The more he thought about the situation; the more the young lover-boy ... or Billy-Boy stepped away from the scene and he was sorry that William had ever gone that day to Southend-on-Sea.

He was about to tell her that he had finished his enquiries for the time being, but Maya anticipated his departure, throwing her head about in a nervous fashion and telling Gardner that she wanted to get dressed and it would be better if he ‘slung his hook’ and made sure the door was closed behind him when he left.