9

Rain had filled the air and washed the streets. There was a newness, a freshness that had no place where I was walking. My feet carried me along a path that could only lead to death: my own and how many others I could not reckon. It was an inescapable path yet a bitter one—bitter with the reek of cordite and the sharpness of broken promises. A street lined with nightmares and tainted with death. This rain was a liar and a cheat and I cursed it as I turned the corner towards the arcade.

It was nearly three and I was late: the lights inside the arcade were dimmed; the place was deserted except for a grey tabby rubbing its leg against the leg of one of the pin tables. I bent to stroke it and its back reared as it jerked its head away and spat. I moved past it and on towards the door.

The light showed dimly over the woodwork. I knocked twice and the sound was lost in the blankness of the moment. After a few seconds waiting I tried again: this time I thought there was a faint scuffling sound from the other side of the door. The handle refused to turn to my grip.

Time to use a little force, I said to myself and then the scuffling grew louder and began to scratch at the wood. I stood quite still: my hand was on the butt of my .38 and I watched as something applied pressure to the handle of the door. A long pause followed by a faint but distinct click and then the handle itself began to turn.

My gun in my right hand, I stepped across the face of the door and yanked it open—fast. Falling from the dying light of the room, something collapsed into the space directly in front of my feet. Something large, something that might have been a bundle of old clothes and sacking: but for the remains of a human head which landed nearest to my toe. Something that was Maxie—or what was left of Maxie.

I knelt among the unswept grime and cradled that mewling thing in my arms. The already swollen leprous face was now a morass of congealed blood and opened flesh. I knelt and held him because he was still human and because that made him more important to me than the cat which moved silently behind me.

Maybe.

Or maybe it was because there was life somewhere within his beaten form and I wanted to get the information that I needed as long as there was the slightest chance.

I lifted the body and carried it into the room, banging the door closed with my foot. I laid him on the table and fetched water from the filthy sink in the corner: I took out my handkerchief and began to clean away his face.

When I had done what I could I went out of the arcade and walked back to the car. From the compartment under the dashboard I took the half-bottle of scotch I had bought to keep me company on the cold journey home. There was enough left—I hoped. I took the bottle back and started to force the contents down Maxie’s throat through the torn purse of his lips. After a while he began to cough and splutter and hold his body against the racking pain.

I leant my head close to his face and had to inwardly clench myself to keep it there.

‘Maxie. Can you hear what I’m saying? Can you see who it is?’

His eyes showed nothing at the back of their slits but he managed to nod his head. I went on.

‘You had something for me. Tell me what it was?’

No movement of the head this time: no acknowledgement.

I shook him not too roughly by the shoulder nearest to me.

‘Maxie! The information! I need to know. Now.’

His head rolled away from mine and I pulled it round again to face me. There was a cut below his left eye which was like an over-ripe plum that has been bitten into by the sharp beak of a bird. I closed my eyes for a second and put my mouth closer to his ear.

‘Look, Maxie. The drugs. Where would I get a nice steady supply of drugs; all clean and without danger? Where, Maxie? Come on, you know where, Maxie.’

Once more the rolling away of the head: once more the pulling back. Each time more desperate: each time fiercer. Knowing that time was running out—Maxie’s time. My time. Time.

‘Maxie! For Christ’s sake!’

I raised him from the surface of the table and supported him with one arm, while I tried to get more whisky into him. He gulped and choked and most of it slobbered back down his face, stinging him as it ran through his sores.

Then the puffed balls that were his eyes seemed to grow more aware. The hold I had on him tightened; the hole beneath his nose tried desperately to form words. I put the side of my head to his face and listened.

‘Scott … you … you’ve got to get me to … doctor … too late oth … erwise … there’s no ch—’ He broke off as a pain cut through the length of his body: his hands went to his chest and the hole that was his mouth opened wide. I held him to me: I was sure he was dying and so was he.

But it passed this time and he made another effort to speak.

‘Doctor … now … now Scott … dying.’

‘Okay, Maxie, I’ll take you to the doctor. But first tell me about the drugs. The drugs, Maxie! You just tell me and then I’ll put you in the motor and we’ll go to the doctor.’

He said nothing, whispered nothing. I just prayed he was still listening.

‘You said it was getting more difficult. You said that someone else was moving in. Someone big. Who, Maxie, who?’

‘East End … running stuff for some—uh! my chest! like a strap across me! … I don’t know who … they use the muscle … knocking small boys out …’

I shook him hard.

‘I know that, Maxie, I know all that. You gave me that before. What I want now is names. Names, Maxie! If you want to get to that doctor give me some names!’

He spoke again but the sound was getting more and more feeble every time.

‘Don’t … know … names … young feller … moustache long hair … a nigger … big as houses … big as—ooh! pain! it was him as done … as done me …’

The sound trickled off into a constant moaning.

I lifted his head and held it in front of mine.

‘You must know more than that, Maxie. More than if you want help.’

He slumped back and I felt as though he was slipping away from me. I looked at the whisky bottle—it was empty.

‘Maxie!’

I pulled back my hand and slapped him hard across the face. Twice: across and back. The mouth-thing opened slightly. I bent my ear to it.

‘Don’t need … no help … no doctor … now.’

I shook him. I pulled him upright. Shook him again. Laid him back on the table. Listened for a pulse that no longer beat.

I went over to the sink and washed my hands; took up the whisky bottle and put it in my pocket; used the handkerchief smeared with his blood to wipe any of my prints from the tap, the table and the door. From the dirt and grease of his clothing they would learn nothing. Using the handkerchief, I closed the door on Maxie’s body.

The cat was still in the arcade. It sniffed its nose up in the air as I came out of the room. Slowly, gracefully, it walked towards me and went to rub itself against my leg. I swung back my foot and kicked at it, kicked at it as hard as I could. Then went out into the wet streets.

By the time I got home it was too late to go to bed, too early to do anything else. I made coffee and couldn’t drink it. Everything I touched or tasted had the feel, the stench of decay. I ran a bath and lay in it and tried to think.

Candi was hooked on something: from the things I found in her flat it was probably something like amphetamines or barbiturates. She was hooked and she was broke, probably from having to pay for whatever she was hooked on. Then somebody killed her. It could have been because she was refusing to pay up any more; it could have been because she was threatening to bite back on her source of supply and whoever that was got scared. It could have been something else altogether. But suppose it was something to do with the drugs. What then?

I knew that Howard was involved with drugs in some way, but if he was pushing then he had to get his supply from somewhere. And if someone was moving in on the market and trying to get it sewn-up, they wouldn’t stick to London. They would move out into the provinces as well. Which made it very likely that Howard had been squeezed out. Besides, I couldn’t see him killing anyone himself and if Cook was typical of the kind of no-hope help he hired then he wouldn’t get anyone to do it for him. No. It was far more likely to be someone from outside. Someone from this mob. Maxie had said an oversize Negro and a young moustache. The Negro I had certainly seen and from his looks and from the way he had dealt with Maxie, I couldn’t imagine him using a little .32 on Candi. He wouldn’t even have been able to hold it between his fingers.

But a young, long-haired moustache. There were hundreds and hundreds of them and they all looked alike. How could you tell one from the other? Until you knew one, of course.

I thought about dear John, opening the door with a servile smile and a gun bulging through his jacket. John with the trust of Mr Thurley with an ‘ey’.

Altogether too smooth, Mr Thurley with his Eton and Guards airs and graces and his library full of unread leather-bound books. Bought by the yard. Bought from where? What had Vonnie said about Martin’s little business venture?

I had to talk to Vonnie again. And to Thurley.

But before I talked to either of them I wanted to speak to Tom Gilmour. There was some more information I could do with and which he might have.

The water in the bath was growing steadily colder and a light scum had formed across its surface. It was time to get out: I should have got out sooner.