Forests of the Night (12 page)

It is amazing what you can do to a lock with a piece of wire, some know-how and a fair bit of patience. It was one of the tricks I learned when I first went on the beat. A grizzled sergeant who'd seemed old enough to have been one of the original Bow Street runners took a shine to me and showed me the procedure. Since then I always carried a short length of strong wire in my wallet. Kneeling down by the keyhole, I set to work. After five minutes of twisting and scraping, I heard the satisfying click of the lock bar slipping back. Open Sesame. Eat your heart out, Mr Houdini.

Mopping my damp brow, I entered the apartment. The first thing that struck me was how tiny it was. Smart and chic certainly but on a doll's house scale. The entrance hall ran the length of the flat with two rooms on either side. The first one, on the left, was the sitting room. It was sparsely and stylishly furnished but had no personality stamped on it. Signs of the recent police presence were in evidence: the carpet had been pulled back in one corner, drawers were open, most of them empty, as were the ashtrays. The locust squad had obviously been fairly thorough. It looked as though I had been consigned to the role of Detective Mother Hubbard. This impression was confirmed as I mooched around the room, lifting cushions and peering behind picture frames: the cupboard was bare.

I crossed the hall and into the bedroom. It was a windowless room so I switched on the light. The bed had been stripped and all bed linen removed but there was a dark-crimson stain on the mattress to bear witness to murder. The blood of Pammie Palmer. I always found something unnerving about a room in which someone has died, particularly one who has died violently. There's an unnatural chill and a hissing silence in the air which assail your senses. I didn't want to stay here long and looking around I reckoned there was little point anyway. Again drawers had been emptied and left hanging open like lolling wooden tongues and, as I suspected, the wardrobe had been raided, the clothes no doubt having been bagged up by the lads or maybe the ladies of Scotland Yard. I never expected Knight's bunch to have been this thorough. Although now they had charged Sam Fraser, no doubt all the items they had acquired would be regarded as unnecessary evidence and squirrelled away without examination in a dark corner of Scotland Yard. The pity of it.

Some strange instinct made me touch the bed, my fingers running across the mattress towards the patch of dried blood. I wasn't a stranger to death or to murder but I never felt comfortable with it. The enormity of one person taking another's life – for whatever reason – chilled me to the marrow. How deep into the dark forests of the night does one have to go before one can summon up sufficient strength and malevolence to commit murder? I didn't want to know the answer.

I took one last look round and was about to leave when I noticed a note pad on the bedside table by the telephone. On further inspection, I saw that the pad was blank, but as I leaned over it to examine it, I caught sight of something white that had slipped down the back of the table. I pulled it away from the wall to discover that one of the sheets from the pad had slipped down there. It had been missed by the locust squad.

With a dry mouth and beating heart, I picked up the paper. It had numbers on it. A telephone number – unless I was woefully mistaken. I gave the sheet a little kiss and sat on the bed and dialled the number. The phone rang and rang. I waited. It rang and rang. I gave it two minutes but still it rang. Well, it appears they are out then, Johnny boy, whoever they are, I told myself.

I was just about to replace the receiver when miraculously it was picked up at the other end. Initially I was assailed by a bout of violent coughing and then a rough male voice bellowed down the wires, ‘'Allo!'

‘Hello,' I replied cheerily. ‘Who is that speaking?'

‘Who wants ter know?'

‘This is John Hawke. I … er … I was wanting to speak to Mr Chaplin.' I made the name up on the spur of the moment and I suddenly had a vision of the little tramp with the bowler hat and cane.

‘Well, this ain't him. My name's not Chaplin.'

‘Oh, dear,' I said, apologetically. ‘What address is that?'

‘Are you trying to be funny, mate? This is no bloomin' address. It's a ruddy phone box. I've been waiting outside for nigh on two minutes waiting for it to stop ringing so I can call my missus.'

A phone box!

‘I'm awfully sorry,' I said, not wanting to increase this fellow's indignation any more. ‘I'll get off the line straight away so that you can call your missus but would you be kind enough to tell me where the box is?'

‘It's on the corner of Berner's Street and Boynton Street. That do you?'

‘Thank you, Mr…?'

‘Never you mind who.'

And the phone went dead.

When I hit the street again, I was glad of the fresh air. For some moments I stood on the pavement taking deep breaths, expunging the air of death from my lungs. The fresh supply of oxygen must have rushed to my brain nourishing and energizing it for something clicked up there in my rather sore
medulla oblongata.
As I stood with my back to the building which housed Pammie Palmer's flat, I realized for the first time that I was facing Regent's Park. The railings, the trees, you dummy! Yes, that's Regent's Park. And it was in Regent's Park where young Peter was found camping out. Young Peter who rambled deliriously about seeing Tiger Blake with blood on his hands. I turned my head to look at the block of flats and then back again to Regent's Park. I shouldn't have moved my head so quickly, not in my rather delicate recuperative state. My vision blurred and I staggered back against the railings, grabbing them for support.

I must have seemed drunk to the elderly lady passing by for she gave me a wide berth and a nasty look. I didn't care. I had made a connection. If Tiger Blake, aka Gordon Moore, had visited Pammie on the night of her death, had murdered her in fact, he could have been seen leaving the building by Peter from some hidey-hole in the park. And if Moore had murdered Pammie – a vision of that stained mattress flashed into my mind – then he may well have had blood on his hands. Suddenly some of those puzzle pieces were beginning to slip into place.

sixteen

‘There is only one way to get out of here … and that's by killing the guards.'

The beautiful blonde girl blanched and her bosom heaved, straining against her sweat-soaked shirt. ‘But how?' she squealed. ‘They've got your gun.'

Tiger Blake clenched his teeth and with a deft movement extracted a cruel-looking knife from the top of one of his riding boots. It flashed in the light. ‘This should do the trick,' he grinned and then froze.

‘Cut! That's a print,' came a voice beyond the lights.

‘Thank the fuck for that,' observed Tiger Blake in uncharacteristic fashion. Turning his back on his leading lady he walked out of the prison cell on to the studio floor.

‘That's fine, Gordon,' said director Norman Lee. ‘We shan't need you again till after lunch. It's the interrogation scene. You've had the rewrites?'

Tiger Blake, who had now fully metamorphosed into the actor Gordon Moore, gave Lee a sour nod. ‘They're always fucking changing things.'

‘For a better picture,' said Lee with a pleasant grin. After six films together he was used to Gordon's moods and was adept at dealing with them. Lee was an American Jew, an escapee from Z pictures on Hollywood's Poverty Row to British B movies which satisfied his modest ambitions. He was a strong believer in the quiet life and in this instance he knew that
Tiger Blake's Arabian Adventure
was the last feature they would make together so he was happy to let the actor have his way. Once the film was completed, he could say goodbye to shoddy Tiger Blake and, more importantly, goodbye to the awkward bastard who played him. ‘Nice work this morning,' he added, tapping Moore's arm. He knew how to be oleaginous when it was necessary. ‘Three o'clock on set please.'

Moore gave him a brief nod and departed for his dressing-room.

Lee hoped that his star didn't down too much gin before the interrogation scene. The dialogue was fairly tricky and they'd been lucky enough to get Francis L. Sullivan to play Ben Zahir, the chief of police. Now he was a real actor.

Moore shut the door of his dressing-room and leaned against it. He could feel tears begin to well in his eyes and he forced them back. He didn't want to have to redo his makeup again. It took longer than ever these days to make a flabby 48-year-old look ten years younger. Yes, it took longer and the results were far from convincing. He hated growing old. He hated being stuck with the Tiger Blake image – but it was all he'd got. And it had made him a household name. This was the first movie in which he'd had to wear a toupee. His own sandy hair had thinned so much that his bald patch could not be disguised with careful combing any more. Well, it won't be for much longer. This was the last Tiger Blake. The scrap heap was waiting.

He poured himself a large gin and guzzled half of it in one gulp. It burned his throat and it pleased him. He wrapped a thin dressing-gown around him and lay on the couch nursing the replenished glass of gin between his hands. He'd take a nap and then look at those fucking rewrites.

As he closed his eyes, the vision of Pammie Palmer's lovely face filled the dark vacuum. Her mouth was open in a silent scream and her eyes glowered back at him in a glassy, accusative stare. The image held for a moment as Moore's body stiffened with apprehension and then suddenly the girl's eyes blinked, blood seeped from the corners of her mouth and the scream was no longer silent: it was a shrill and insistent whine. She reached out to touch him.

Moore opened his eyes, banishing the image. He gave a grunt of fear and sat bolt upright on the couch, a fine film of perspiration bathing his brow. As he caught his breath, he realized that the scream was in fact his telephone, which rang with a high-pitched nagging tone. Taking another gulp of gin, he snatched up the receiver.

‘Yes,' he snarled.

‘Mr Moore, it's Tristan here.…'

‘How many times have I told you, you pansy, not to disturb me between takes?'

‘I know sir, I know. But this is rather important. It's an urgent personal call.'

‘It's not my wife, is it?'

‘No, sir. It's a call from a business associate, a Miss Pammie Palmer.'

Gordon Moore dropped his glass of gin which shattered as it hit the tiled floor.

‘Shall I put her through, Mr Moore?'

The actor's mind was in a whirl. His throat was dry and constricted when he replied some seconds later.

‘Yes, put her through.' For a moment he wondered if this was real or a vivid dream.

There was a brief silence followed by some crackling on the line – but no one spoke, forcing the actor to speak first. ‘Hello.'

‘Gordon.' The voice was low, almost a whisper, and strangely devoid of humanity.

‘Who is this?'

‘I know what you did, Gordon. You have blood on your hands, Gordon.'

Moore gripped the receiver tight. ‘What are you talking about? Who is this? What do you want?'

‘What do I want? I want justice, Gordon. I want you.'

And then the line went dead leaving the searing sound of buzzing in his ears.

Like a man in a trance, he replaced the receiver. He sat on the couch and put his head in his hands, not caring this time how much he disturbed his make-up. ‘Oh, my God,' he said despairingly. ‘Oh, my God.'

seventeen

Here I was back in Bermondsey, but this time I wasn't going to venture into Mr Leo Epstein's emporium – I'd had enough of the old smoothy yesterday. However I was reminded that I ought to get in touch with Dirty Knight to let him know of lovely Leo's involvement with Pammie – not that I suspected that he would be the least bit interested in the information now that he'd made an arrest. I felt sure that if someone walked into Knight's office and confessed to the crime, offering up the weapon with the girl's blood on it, he'd smile and say, ‘Thanks for your help, but we have the matter in hand already. Just leave your name with the desk sergeant.' It was characters like Knight, coppers with closed minds and naked ambition, who made me glad that I was no longer on the force. I couldn't work like that. Thanks to the army, I didn't have to. Although it would be nice to have the regular income that came with the job. And both eyes, of course.

I found myself a cosy doorway virtually opposite Epstein's place in which to wait. I wanted to catch Eve as she left work and see if I could convince her that fate, rather than my own fecklessness, in the form of a bloke with a blunt instrument had stepped in the way of my meeting her the previous evening. At least I had a sound piece of evidence in my bandaged head. She could take off the dressing and inspect the wound if that's what was needed to do the job.

I lit up a Craven A and leaned against the wall, inhaling deeply. It was just after quarter to five. I reckoned Epstein would release her about five or maybe half past. On reflection it would be half past. He was the type to keep 'em at the grindstone as long as possible. Before making the trek to Bermondsey – by tube this time for not only was I beginning to feel my old self again but I also had an inclination to rub shoulders with living breathing humanity after being alone in the murder flat – I'd traipsed round to the corner of Berner's Street and Boynton Street to visit my suspect phone box. It didn't have much to say for itself. It was just a normal red phone box, rather shabby inside with the usual mechanical gubbins. Out of a childhood habit I pressed button B a couple of times but it just clanked in a negative fashion and failed to release any of its treasures. Typically there was an interesting selection of tab ends littering the floor and the air stank of sweat and other unpleasantnesses. Nothing out of the ordinary at all. So at first glance it looked rather like a dead end. Then I got to thinking why Pammie had written the phone number down in the first place. Surely the only reason was that so she could contact someone in the box – someone who was waiting for the call. There couldn't have been anything random about it. But why here? Why a public phone box?