Charlie (46 page)

Andrew felt a shiver go down his spine. Spud had mentioned Holland too, and Charlie had said that the last time she spoke to her father he was on his way to Rotterdam.

‘Did you hear anything about why he was killed? Was he a villain?’

Angie gave him an odd pitying look. ‘Blokes that start out in Soho aren’t exactly straight,’ she said. ‘But Jin, ’e weren’t a real “face”, know what I mean? He’d been round the block a few times. Sharp as razors, but not a villain. He weren’t the sort to get up people’s noses either.’

‘What do you think happened then?’ Andrew asked.

‘Buggered if I know,’ she said, pushing aside her now empty glass and reaching for Andrew’s cigarettes. ‘I wonder ’ow his missis took it, she was mad about ’im and they ’ad a kid an’ all. I was in ’is club the night she were born, what a party that was!’

Andrew almost held his breath as Angie spoke of Jin getting out bottle after bottle of champagne. ‘It was the good stuff too,’ she said, her blue eyes brightening as she remembered. ‘Some people got so drunk they conked out on the floor.’

‘Someone today mentioned a woman called DeeDee,’ Andrew said. ‘They thought she worked at the Lotus too.’

Angie began coughing violently. ‘That bitch,’ she rasped.

Andrew asked the waitress to bring a glass of water and ordered a pot of tea too. Angie’s coughing gradually subsided after a few sips, but her face was still very flushed.

‘Too many cigarettes?’ Andrew said in sympathy.

‘No, I reckon it was you bringing up that bitch’s name,’ she said. ‘She got me the sack. But it’s funny someone told you about ’er, no one ever mentions her name around ’ere.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she’s real bad news.’

‘In what way?’

‘Keep on asking about ’er and you’ll find out,’ Angie said with a grimace. ‘She’s like a bleedin’ octopus, with a tentacle in everything. But she don’t call ’erself DeeDee no longer. ‘Asn’t called herself that since the days she stripped with Sylvie, and she’s come a long way since that. Miss Dexter is what she gets called, and God ’elp anyone that forgets the Miss. But let’s get off ’er, I’m not ’appy talking about that.’

Andrew felt as if his party balloon had just been pricked. He was certain Angie knew a great deal about this woman, possibly even where she lived and where she operated from, but he instinctively knew that if he persisted in asking questions she’d get up and leave.

Over the tea, he asked her about other aspects of Soho, and once again heard similar stories to ones he’d already been told.

It was nearly six when Angie said she had to go. Andrew thanked her for her help, and gave her one of his handouts. ‘If you think of something more could you drop me a line there?’

‘Okay,’ she said folding it and putting it in her handbag.

Andrew didn’t think she would write. ‘Is there anywhere I could contact you again if I need something more?’ he asked impulsively. ‘I daren’t go walking up and down that street to look for you.’

She looked apprehensive for a moment. ‘Okay, I’ll give you my home address,’ she said. ‘But I’m not on the phone, so drop me a line before you come, and best make it around two in the afternoon. Before the kids get home from school.’ She scribbled down an address in Mornington Crescent.

‘You’ve got kids?’ He was surprised she hadn’t mentioned them before.

‘Three, two boys and a girl,’ she said with a smile. ‘That’s another story for you. But they think I work in a pub, so if you should bump into them at my place, you mind your p’s and q’s.’

‘Shall I walk back with you?’ he asked. He assumed she was going to work.

‘Not on your nelly,’ she laughed. ‘If any of the girls saw me they’d be pestering me all night to know what was going on.’

As Andrew rode back to Hampstead on his scooter, his mind was whirling with everything he’d been told today. He wished he could share it with Charlie and discuss where they should go from here. Maybe the police didn’t know that DeeDee the mistress was now known as Miss Dexter, but it would be pointless for him to go and try to talk to someone about it. Charlie was the only person that could do that.

Chapter Fifteen

Spud staggered into his room in Berwick Street just after midnight. He was much drunker than usual for a Monday night, and he blamed that on the young lad who’d asked so many questions today.

Drink was the only way Spud had of blanking out how hopeless his future was. He might have been a courageous boxer once, and still remembered in boxing circles, but he’d only ever won minor championships, and was finished by an eye injury before he even got a stab at a big one. Two marriages down the pan. Both wives had run off when they discovered he was a loser. Even the jobs he once got as a doorman at clubs were closed to him now. Club owners didn’t just want beef these days, they wanted handsome faces too.

Spud looked around his room dejectedly. He didn’t really see the dirt, the filthy sheet on the unmade bed or the black mould on the walls; he’d grown used to that long ago. All he saw was the absence of comforts – no television, no soft armchair, not even a pair of curtains at the grimy window.

He got his dole money each week, and supplemented that with odd jobs, stacking crates in pub cellars, toting vegetables down the market, and on good days he told himself he still had his health and plenty of friends.

But talking to that kid today had brought back the good times, when he’d had flashy suits, a gold watch, money in his pocket and a girl on his arm. The lad had been fresh-faced, bright and eager, soaking up Spud’s stories like a sponge. He’d got his whole life ahead of him and he’d probably make a fortune from writing a book about the characters of Soho. Spud was one of them, but what would he get? Nothing!

He fumbled in his pocket for the leaflet the lad had given him. The print was too small to read without glasses, and he’d lost those some time ago. But he could read the Hampstead address at the top, and that to his mind said it all.

‘A big ’ouse, good schools, plenty of dosh,’ he mumbled. ‘You should’a got more than a dinner out’a ’im. You’re a mug, Spud, you let people take advantage.’

He lay down on his bed and kicked off his boots. The room was like an oven and he wanted a piss, but it was too far down the stairs, and the lights had gone because someone had nicked the light bulbs. He could bet that kid didn’t have to worry about his stairs being lit up, his folks probably had servants that put them on and off.

Spud reached under the bed for his emergency bucket. It was nearly full already and it slopped on the floor as he pulled it out. He flopped himself over the edge, relieved himself, then lay back on the bed.

‘Strange he was so interested in the Lotus Club,’ he said aloud. ‘What did ’e want to know about that for?’

Spud fell asleep before he could think of any good reason why anyone would want to know about one small cellar club owned by a Chinese.

It was early morning when Spud woke again. The market men were setting up below, clanking the poles from their stalls and shouting at each other, just as they did every day. The bucket stank, and he wished he’d had the presence of mind to chuck it out the window last night, as he usually did.

His head was surprisingly clear. And as he lay there wondering whether to get up and go and see if anyone wanted his help, Miss Dexter suddenly sprang into his mind.

She’d always been good for a few bob in the past when he had some information to pass on. She was after all Jin Weish’s bird at one time, and she might very well be interested that someone was asking questions about him.

Spud smiled. It had to be worth a tenner. Besides, she might have some other jobs for him. The sun was shining outside, he’d go and see if anyone wanted any help, then nip down the baths and get spruced up to see her.

The man who marched briskly into the Mayfair offices of Eagle Incorporated at noon looked a great deal better than he’d looked at seven the same morning. In a dark suit, clean shirt and with his shoes cleaned Spud was almost smart. But the suit was threadbare with a pervading smell of mould, and his shoes had holes in the soles.

‘Could I see Miss Dexter?’ he asked the receptionist. ‘She’s expecting me. It’s Mr O’Neill.’

‘Would you like to take a seat while I call her,’ the receptionist replied, trying hard not to stare at the strange-looking man, or wrinkle her nose at the smell of carbolic soap mingled with mould wafting from him. She’d only been working at Eagle Inc for two weeks so she knew nothing more about the company other than that they dealt in property, but she couldn’t help thinking that for such a smart office, they had some very peculiar callers.

Spud sat and waited, his hands clasped between his outstretched knees. This office in Brook Street always intimidated him, it was too grand for his taste with its thick carpets, chrome and glass. Even the young receptionist looked as if she’d just stepped out of a fashion magazine.

‘Miss Dexter will see you now, Mr O’Neill,’ the girl said after a few minutes. ‘Up the stairs and it’s the room in front of you.’

‘I know,’ he said, anxious to make the girl see he was someone important. ‘I’ve been here before, many times.’

Many times was stretching it, around three times including now, but then Spud always exaggerated.

‘Good morning, John Joe,’ Miss Dexter said as he opened her office door. ‘Come in and sit down.’

Spud might not like her much, but he approved of her calling him by his proper name. Her office was just like her – cold, efficient and tasteful. A huge black desk, white walls and pale grey carpet, with black and white framed ‘art’ photographs on the walls. Her hair was black, fixed up in a tight bun, she wore a black suit and white blouse. The only scrap of colour in the room was her red lipstick.

‘I hope you didn’t mind me belling you,’ he said. ‘But like I said, I ’ad something I thought might be of interest to you.’

‘And what might that be?’ she said raising one thin pencilled eyebrow.

Spud explained as quickly as possible; he knew she thought her time too precious to waste on chit-chat. ‘He might be kosher,’ he said. ‘Well-spoken, bright lad. But it struck me funny that he was so interested in the Lotus Club. He also asked if I knew a DeeDee.’

Spud knew that would worry her, few people knew she once went by that name.

‘Did he now?’ She put her elbows on her desk and rested her chin on her two clenched hands. ‘And what pray did you tell him?’

‘I said I’d never met anyone called that.’

‘I see,’ she said, staring at him coldly.

Spud observed that her blue eyes were the same colour as the sky outside the window behind her, her skin still as smooth as a child’s. He had often wondered why such a good-looking woman could be so evil, for that was what she was.

‘And what were you thinking this piece of news was worth?’ she asked.

‘That’s up to you, Miss,’ he said quickly. He slid his hand into his inside pocket and brought out the handout. ‘Maybe ’e is what ’e says, but it’s odd, ain’t it?’

She gave it no more than a cursory glance and dropped it to her desk. ‘I expect he’s employed by one of those terribly dull film companies. They are forever sending out young people in the faint hope they might find something worth turning into a tedious documentary,’ she said. ‘But thank you, John Joe, for bringing it to my attention.’ She opened her desk drawer and pulled out a £20 note. ‘That’s for your trouble, and of course it goes without saying you won’t mention our little chat to anyone else.’

‘Of course not, Miss Dexter, and thank you,’ he said, pocketing the note before she could change her mind. ‘I’ll be off then.’

Spud almost ran to the nearest pub. He knew she was seriously rattled, or she wouldn’t have given him a twenty. It had turned out to be a very good day.

Daphne Dexter studied the leaflet for some time after Spud had gone, wondering who on earth this Andrew Blake could be. If he had been working for a film company he would have used their headed paper, and his approach to Spud was far too amateurish for a detective, private or with CID. Of course he might be just what he said he was, a kid doing some freelance research work for a serious writer. But who could have given him that name DeeDee?

Only a handful of people knew it. The period she used it for wasn’t more than eighteen months, and it was as dead as a door-nail by 1953, when she was twenty-four. That was nineteen years ago!

Daphne Dexter had got where she was today, the owner of an extremely successful company, by paying attention to small details. Back in the late Fifties when she was after buying a crumbling, rat-infested house in the back streets of Paddington, she made sure she knew all there was to know about the sitting tenants before buying it for next to nothing from the landlord.

Blackmail was a far easier way of persuading someone to leave a property than violence. She used it quite casually at that time. Just a word in the Jamaican’s ear that she knew he’d entered the country on forged documents, and he and his family disappeared the same day. The other family were obtaining National Assistance fraudulently, and that had the same effect.

Within three years she owned four such houses, and had them crammed with the kind of tenants who didn’t complain about overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and high rents. They were all West Indians and grateful for anywhere to live.

Keeping an ear to the ground, checking people out became a way of life. And the East London thugs she’d known from childhood, and her own brothers, were invaluable to keep her tenants in order. People said she was lucky, but then they didn’t know that what appeared to be luck was in fact often inside information. She heard a whisper that the notorious landlord Peter Rachman was about to be thoroughly investigated, long before he knew it. She emptied out her houses and sold them all. By the time his name became common knowledge throughout England, she was buying up other houses in more select areas and renting them out to young Australians, New Zealanders, and Americans, who wanted to sample ‘Swinging London’. They had to get their friends to sleep on their floors to pay the high rents, but the ‘Bleeding Heart’ brigade didn’t concern themselves with young visitors to England.