Godbehere got the day shift out of bed.
‘That includes Mazzer,’ said Troy.
But Mazzer was not answering his phone.
‘Then send someone round there. We’re calling in Mr Mazzer’s loan.’
‘What loan?’
‘All the borrowed time he’s been living on lately. Now, tell me what happened.’
‘I’ve an eyewitness in the interview room, if you want it first hand.’
‘Who?’
‘Wilf Robertson. Barber in the Mile End Road.’
‘Shrimp’s father?’
‘The same.’
In the interview room, a small, dapper man – no sprinkling of his customer’s clippings, and the look of someone who shaved twice a day, and wielded the Brylcreem without mercy – got up and held out a hand for Troy to shake. He knew Troy. Troy did not know him.
‘You was famous back in the old days, Mr Troy. You know. Towards the end of the war, an’ that.’
‘You must be very proud of your son,’ Troy said, exercising a standard repertoire and not really caring whether he was or not.
Robertson blushed a little. Lowered his head. ‘A good lad,’ he said softly. ‘Done me proud he has.’
Troy pulled back a chair to let them all know the pleasantries were over.
Robertson sat down; Godbehere leaned against the wall and folded his arms. ‘I wonder, Mr Robertson, if you’d be so kind as to tell us one more time what you saw.’
‘Course. It was like this. I got me shop down the Mile End Road. Next door to the Paviour’s Arms it is. I been there since 1926, and my dad was there before me since 1895. The Paviour’s our local. Once or twice a week I go in there after work. I don’t stop cuttin’ till late – no point in closin’ at five, after all. I get the trade mostly from blokes comin’ off shift after a day’s work. Best hour of the day is six till seven, so often as not I work till gone eight. It was slack tonight, though. I shut at seven on the dot. Went round to the Paviour’s just after openin’ time. Watched the regulars come in. You know the sort. The usual half-dozen. Blokes who only go home to sleep. About quarter of an hour after me Mott comes in. I’ve known Mott Kettle all me life. Cut his hair since I was a lad. Always the same. Whip round after with the taper, and a packet of three for the weekend. Anyway, Mott comes in. Orders his pint. Finishes it quick, and he’s just got his lips to the second when the doors open and the Ryans walk in. By now the pub’s beginnin’ to fill up a bit. Like there’s a dozen or more of us. I’ve had me two penn’orth out o’ Mott, and I’m chattin’ down the far end of the bar to Barney Hamlin from the fishmonger’s. The Ryans have, like, got this way of shuttin’ up a room whenever they walk in. I seen ‘em do it since they was no more than teenagers. They stood dead centre, and people sort of waved away from ‘em in ripples. Like water on a pond. And Mott gets a feel of this and he turns round and greets ‘em like they were his long-lost sons. Slaps his money on the counter and orders drinks for ‘em. Smilin’ all the time, like, and it takes a while for the penny to drop that they aren’t smilin’ back at him. Then one of the Ryans says, “We hear you spent a night in the nick, Mott.” Mott pulls on his pint, wipes the froth from his lips, still smilin’, like, and says, bold as brass, “Yeah, but they got nothin’ outa me. It’ll take more than a pillock like Troy to get the better of old Mott.”
‘Then one Ryan says, “Mott, you are such a fuckin’ idiot,” pulls out a gun the size of a howitzer and shoots Mott in the leg. I hit the floor. Everybody ducks. Mott goes down screamin’. Whichever Ryan it is -and truth to tell I’ve never been able to tell ‘em apart since they was snot-nosed little brats ‘angin’ around my shop – whichever, he passes the gun to the other, says, “Mott, you always were a total twat,” then he turns to the other and says, “Finish him,” and the other one puts the gun to Mott’s head and it blows apart like an overripe melon dropped on the greengrocer’s floor. And then the Ryans walk out like they’d just nipped in for a packet of fags. And I go over to Mott to see if there’s somethin’ I can do, and there’s nothin’ I can do, cos poor old Mott ‘e’s got half his head missin’, an’t ‘e? And the landlord calls the police, and most everybody else does a runner cos they don’t want to mess with it. And me I’m lookin’ at Mott, and I’m thinkin’, Mott, you always was a scabrous little git, but what did you do to deserve this? And I think there’s nothin’ ‘e could have done. Cos ole Mott was ‘armless. A wrong ‘un, right enough. But ‘armless. Ole Mott wouldn’t have ‘urt a fly.’
Robertson ground to a halt, almost tearful as he spoke of Mott. Troy could not but help think that Wilf Robertson would be the only one to shed a tear for the passing of Moses Kettleman.
‘You say you’ve never been able to tell the Ryans apart?’
‘That’s right. Not since they was nippers.’
‘So you can’t say for certain who fired the shot that killed Mott?’
‘No, I can’t. But they both shot him. They each took the gun and they each pulled the trigger. They each wanted to take a piece out of Mott. Does it matter which one of them?’
‘No,’ said Troy. ‘For once I don’t think it does.’
Back in his office, Godbehere said, ‘All the other regulars have come forward since. It seems as though nobody thought Mott deserved to die like that. I’ve thirteen witnesses backing up what Mr Robertson said.
‘Nobody’s seen the Ryans since. Except, of course, that the phone hasn’t stopped ringing with people who think they’ve seen them. They’ve been seen in Notting Hill and Clapton – within five minutes of each other. I’m trying to get everything checked out, but right now it’s a matter of sifting the real calls from the panickers. But one thing’s certain. London thinks they’ve overstepped. Nobody’s hiding. Every man in that pub came back and talked to us. Every last one of them made a statement. Some less reliable than others, some with so much form you’d never want to put them anywhere near the witness box -but some, like Wilf Robertson, whom you’d count as respectable locals, honest as the day is long.’
‘Quite,’ said Troy. ‘Robertson is enough to hang them.’
He asked for the list of properties owned by the Ryans.
‘Call West End Central. I want the Empress closed and searched. What’s being done about a general search?’
‘I haven’t bothered with the recent acquisitions – they’re still inhabited after all – but we’ve been round to every likely place on that list, the house, the garage, the warehouses. Nothing. So far, nothing. Seventy years ago we’d have put a man at Victoria station and watched the boat-trains leaving for the Continent. But this is 1959. We’ve got motorways . . . there are a thousand ways out of London.’
‘And we’re not looking for Oscar Wilde,’ said Troy.
There was a tap at the door. The desk sergeant entered. ‘‘Scuse me, sir. DC Shelden’s just called in from Stratford. No one’s answering at Mr Mazzer’s flat. Shelden thinks it’s empty.’
‘Tell him,’ Godbehere said, ‘Tell him to wait. Tell him to sit on the doorstep until Mazzer shows up. When Mazzer shows up I want him here pronto.’
The desk sergeant looked quizzically back at Godbehere. ‘You mean like arrest him, sir? Arrest Mr Mazzer?’
Godbehere passed the quizzical gaze to Troy.
‘No,’ said Troy. ‘Escort him. Don’t arrest him. I don’t want him unduly alarmed. Just tell him he’s needed. Tell him Mott Kettle is dead and we need a report.’