Hell Is Always Today (8 page)

She nodded familiarly. “’Evening, Mr. Miller, or should I say good morning?”

“Hello, Gilda. You must be hard up to turn out on a night like this with a bloody maniac hanging around out there in the rain.”

“I can look after myself.” When she lifted her umbrella he saw that the ferrule had been sharpened into a wicked-looking steel point. “Anyone makes a grab at me gets this through the eyes.”

Miller shook his head. “You think you can take on the whole world, don’t you? I wonder what you’ll look like ten years from now.”

“Just older,” she said brightly.

“If you’re lucky, only by then you’ll be down to a different class of customer. Saturday night drunks at a quid a time for a quickie round the back of the station.”

She wasn’t in the least offended. “We’ll see. What was it you wanted?”

“I suppose you heard there was a girl killed earlier tonight?”

“That’s right. Other side of the park, wasn’t it?”

“Her name was Grace Packard. I’ve been told she was on the game. Is that true?”

Gilda showed no particular surprise. “Kinky looking little tart, all plastic mac and knee boots.”

“That’s it.”

“She tried working the station about six months ago. Got herself into a lot of trouble.”

“What kind?”

“Pinching other people’s regulars, that sort of thing. We moved her on in the end.”

“And how did you manage that?” She hesitated and he said harshly, “Come on, Gilda, this is murder.”

“All right,” she said reluctantly. “I asked Lonny Brogan to have a word with her. She took the point.”

“I can imagine she would after hearing what that big ape had to say,” Miller said. “One other thing, did anyone pimp for her?”

Gilda chuckled contemptuously. “Little half-baked kid with a face like the underbelly of a fish and black sideboards. Harold something or other. Christ knows what she saw in him.”

“You saw her give him money?”

“Plenty of times—mostly to get rid of him from what I could see.”

He nodded. “All right, Gilda, I’ll be seeing you.”

“Oh, Mr. Miller,” she said reprovingly. “I hope you don’t mean that the way it sounds.”

Her laughter echoed mockingly from the vaulted ceiling as he turned and walked away.

When Brady and Harold entered the general office at Central C.I.D. it was bustling with activity for no man might reasonably expect to see his bed on a night like this. Brady left Harold on an uncomfortable wooden bench with the Saturday sport’s paper and went in to Chief Superintendent Mallory who was using Grant’s office.

Mallory was shaving with a battery-operated electric razor and reading a report at the same time. His white shirt was obviously fresh on and he looked crisp and alert in spite of the hour.

“I’ve got the girl’s boy friend outside,” Brady said. “Phillips his name is—Harold Phillips.”

“What’s your first impression?”

“Oh, there’s something there all right. For a start, he’s an unpleasant little bastard.”

“You can’t hang a man for that.”

“There’s a lot more to it than that.”

Brady gave him the gist of his conversation with Harold and when he was finished, Mallory nodded. “All right, let’s have him in.”

When Brady called him, Harold entered with a certain bravado and yet his nervousness was betrayed in the muscle that twitched in his right cheek.

Mallory greeted him with extreme politeness. “Good of you to come at this hour, Mr. Phillips. We appreciate it.”

Harold’s confidence received a king-size boost and he sat down in the chair Brady brought forward and gave Mallory a big man-of-the-world smile. “Anything I can do, Superintendent. You’ve only got to say.”

Brady offered him a cigarette. As he was lighting it, there was a knock on the door and Miller glanced in. He was about to withdraw, but Mallory shook his head and beckoned him inside. Miller closed the door behind him and took up a position by the window without a word.

“Now then, sir, just to get the record straight, you are Mr. Harold Phillips of 10, Narcia Place?” Mallory began.

“That’s me.”

“I’m given to understand that you and Miss Grace Packard were engaged to be married. Is that correct?”

“I suppose you could say that in a way.” Harold shrugged. “I bought her a ring a couple of months back, but nothing was really official. I mean we hadn’t set a date or anything.”

“I understand, sir. Now I wonder if you’d mind going over the events of last night again. I know you’ve already discussed this with Constable Brady, but it would help me to hear for myself.”

“Well, as I told Mr. Brady, I had a date with Grace at half-eight.”

“Just one moment, sir. What happened before that? What time did you get home from work?”

Harold smiled bravely. “To tell you the truth I’m not actually working at the moment, Superintendent. It’s my back you see. I had this accident about a year ago so I have to be very careful.”

Mallory looked sympathetic. “That must be difficult for you. You were saying that you had an appointment with Miss Packard at eight-thirty?”

“That’s right. In The King’s Arms, the one near Regent Square on the corner of Lazer Street.”

“And you kept that appointment?”

“I was a couple of minutes late. When I got there she was leaving with two blokes.”

“Who were they?”

“I don’t know—never seen ’em before.”

“Did she often do this sort of thing?”

Harold sighed heavily. “I’m afraid she did. She was sort of restless, if you know what I mean. Always looking for something new.”

It sounded like a line from a bad television play, but Mallory simply nodded and went on, “What happened when you arrived and found her leaving with these two men?”

“I tried to stop her, tried to reason with her, but she wouldn’t listen.” Harold flushed. “Then one of them got hold of me—great big bloke he was. He twisted my hand in one of these judo locks or something. Put me down on my face. That’s when the landlord moved in and told ’em to clear off.”

“And what did you do then, sir?”

Harold frowned as if trying to remember. “Oh, had a drink with the landlord—on the house.”

“Did you go straight home afterwards?”

“No, like I told Mr. Brady, I was too upset. I walked around in the rain for a while, then I had a coffee in the station buffet. Got home about half-nine. Me mum was in bed so I took her a cup of tea and went myself.”

Mallory had been making notes. He added a sentence and as he glanced up, Miller said, “Excuse me, sir, I’ve been expecting a message.”

He went out into the main office, picked up the telephone on his desk and rang through to Mallory. “Miller here, sir. He’s lying.”

“That’s certainly nice to know,” Mallory said calmly. “I’ll be straight out.”

He put down his phone and smiled brightly at Harold. “I’ll only be a moment.” He got to his feet and said to Brady, “See that Mr. Phillips gets a cup of tea, will you, Constable? There should be some left in the pot.”

He found Miller sitting on the edge of his desk drinking someone else’s coffee. Mallory sat down in the chair and started to fill his pipe. “Nasty little bastard, isn’t he?”

“He may have his moments, but they must be few and far between,” Miller said. “To start with I’ve seen Harry Meadows, the landlord of The King’s Arms. After the fuss, he offered Harold a drink on the house. Harold told him to get stuffed and went off after the others. Five minutes later he returned full of apologies to claim his free glass.”

“Now why would he do that?” Mallory said thoughtfully.

“Apparently he spent the time trying to pump Meadows. Wanted to know where Faulkner lived.”

“You mean he actually knew Faulkner by name?”

“Oh, yes, he made that clear enough. He’d heard Meadows use it during the argument.”

Mallory grinned like the Cheshire cat, the first time Miller had ever seen him smile. “Well that’s a nice fat juicy lie he’s told us for a start.”

“There’s more,” Miller said. “Grace Packard was on the game. Worked the station until the rest of the girls moved her on a month or two back. According to my informant she had a boy friend who picked up her earnings pretty regularly. The description fits our Harold exactly.”

Mallory got to his feet. “Let’s go back in.”

Harold was half-way through his third cigarette and glanced round nervously when the door opened. “Sorry about that, Mr. Phillips,” Mallory said. He smiled heartily and held out his hand. “Well, I don’t think we need to detain you any longer. You can go back to bed now.”

Harold’s mouth gaped. “You mean you don’t need me any more?”

“That’s right. The information you’ve given us will be most helpful. I can’t thank you enough for turning out at this hour in the morning. It’s that kind of co-operation that helps us beat these things you know.” He turned to Brady who came to attention briskly. “See that Mr. Phillips gets home will you, Constable?”

“See to it myself, sir.” Brady put a hand under Harold’s elbow, looking more avuncular than ever. “Have you home in fifteen minutes, sir.”

Harold grinned. “Be seeing you, Superintendent,” he said and went out of the room like a turkey-cock.

Mallory sat down and put a match to his pipe. “No harm in letting him think he’s out of the wood for a few hours. When we pull him in again in the morning the shock will just about cripple him.”

“You really think he’s got something to hide, sir?” Miller demanded.

“He’s lying when he says he doesn’t know Faulkner by name—that’s for a start. Then there’s this business about the girl—the fact that he was pimping for her.”

“It still doesn’t add up to murder.”

“It never does to start with, Sergeant. Suppositions, inaccuracies, statements that don’t really hold water—that’s all we ever have to work with in most cases. For example, Phillips says that he walked the streets for a while after leaving the pub, then had a coffee at the station buffet. How many people would you say use that buffet on a Saturday night?”

“Thousands, sir.”

“Exactly. In other words it would be unreasonable to expect some sort of personal identification by any of the buffet staff. Another thing—as far as we can judge at the moment, the girl was killed at around half-ten.”

“And Phillips was home at nine-thirty and in bed ten minutes or so later. What was it he said? That he took his mother a cup of tea?”

“Interesting thing about Mrs. Phillips,” Mallory said. “Brady had to kick on the door for a good five minutes before he could rouse Phillips. There wasn’t a bleat from the old girl. In fact Phillips told him she was sleeping like a baby.”

Miller frowned. “That doesn’t make very good sense.”

“Even more interesting was the bottle of Canbutal capsules Brady found on the mantelpiece. A couple of those things and you wouldn’t hear a bomb go off in the next street.”

“Might be an idea to check with her doctor in the morning, just to get a complete picture.”

Mallory nodded. “Brady can handle that.” He got to his feet. “I’m going over to the Medical School now. We’ve hauled Professor Murray out of bed. He’s going to get cracking on the post-mortem just as soon as the Forensic boys have finished with her. You’d better get a couple of hours’ sleep in the rest room. If I want you, I’ll phone.”

Miller helped him on with his coat. “What about Faulkner?”

Mallory shook his head. “I never had much of a hunch about him, not in the way I do about Phillips.”

“I’m afraid I can’t agree with you there, sir.”

For a moment, Mallory poised on the brink of one of those sudden and terrible wraths for which he was famous. With a great effort he managed to control himself and said acidly, “Don’t tell me you’re going to solve this thing in a burst of intuitive genius, Miller?”

“Meadows had some very interesting things to say about him, sir,” Miller said patiently. “There’s a pattern of violence there that just doesn’t fit in a man of his background. He uses force too easily, if you follow me.”

“So do I when the occasion calls for it,” Mallory said. “Is that all you have to go on?”

“Not exactly, sir. He had a pretty strange conversation with Meadows one night when he was drunk. Meadows got the impression that he’d been inside.”

Mallory frowned. “Did he indeed? Right, get on to C.R.O. in London. Tell them it’s for me. Say I want everything they have on Faulkner by breakfast. I’ll discuss it with you then.”

The door banged behind him and Miller grinned softly. For a moment there, just for a moment, it had looked as if they were going to clash. That moment would come again because George Mallory was a stubborn man and Nick Miller was a sleeping partner in a business so large that he didn’t need to put himself out to anyone for the sake of keeping his job. Not God or even Chief Superintendents from New Scotland Yard. An interesting situation. He lit a cigarette, picked up Mallory’s telephone and asked for Information Room.

The small rest room was badly overcrowded and there was hardly room to move between the camp beds which had been specially imported. Miller slept badly which was hardly surprising. There was an almost constant disturbance at what seemed like five minute intervals throughout the night as colleagues were sent for and the rain continued to hammer relentlessly against the window pane above his head.

At about seven a.m. he gave up the struggle, got a towel and went along the corridor to the washroom. He stood under a hot shower for a quarter of an hour, soaking the tiredness away and then sampled the other end of the scale, an ice-cold needle spray for precisely thirty seconds just to give himself an appetite.

He was half-way through a plate of bacon and eggs and on his third cup of tea in the canteen when Brady found him. The big Irishman eased himself into the opposite chair and pushed a flimsy across the table.

“Hanley in Information asked me to give you that. Just come in from C.R.O. in London.”

Miller read it quickly and took a deep breath. “Quite a lad when he gets going, our Bruno. Where’s Mallory?”

“Still at the post-mortem.”

Miller pushed back his chair. “I’d better get over to the Medical School then. You coming?”

Brady shook his head. “I still haven’t contacted Mrs. Phillips’ doctor. Mallory told me to wait till after breakfast. Said there was no rush. I’ll be across as soon as I’ve had a word with him.”

“I’ll see you then,” Miller said and left quickly.

The mortuary was at the back of the Medical School, a large, ugly building in Victorian Gothic with stained glass windows and the vaguely religious air common to the architecture of the period.

Jack Palmer, the Senior Technician, was sitting in his small glass office at the end of the main corridor and he came to the door as Miller approached.

“Try and arrange your murders at a more convenient hour next time will you,” he said plaintively. “My first Saturday night out in two months ruined. My wife was hopping mad, I can tell you.”

“My heart bleeds for you, Jack,” Miller said amiably. “Where’s the top brass?”

“Having tea inside. I shouldn’t think you rate a cup.”

Miller opened the door on the other side of the office and went into the white-tiled hall outside the theatre. Mallory was there, seated at a small wooden table talking to Henry Wade, the Head of Forensic, and Professor Stephen Murray, the University Professor of Pathology, a tall, spare Scot.

Murray knew Miller socially through his brother and greeted him with the familiarity of an old friend. “You still look as if you’ve stepped straight out of a whisky advert, Nick, even at eight-fifteen in the morning. How are you?”

“Fine—nothing that a couple of weeks’ leave wouldn’t cure.” Miller turned to Mallory. “I’ve just been handed the report on Faulkner from C.R.O.”

“Anything interesting?”

“I think you could say that, sir. Harry Meadows wasn’t wrong—he does have a record. Fined twice for assault and then about two years ago he ran amok at some arty Chelsea party.”

“Anybody hurt?”

“His agent. Three broken ribs and a fractured jaw. Faulkner’s a karate expert so when he loses his temper it can have rather nasty results.”

“Did they send him down?”

“Six months and he did the lot. Clocked one of the screws and lost all his remission.”

“Anything known against him since?”

“Not a thing. Apparently some sort of psychiatric investigation was carried out when he was inside so there’s quite an interesting medical report. Should be along soon.”

Mallory seemed curiously impatient. “All right, all right, we’ll talk about it later.” He turned to Professor Murray. “What do you think then, is this another Rainlover thing or isn’t it?”

“That’s for you to decide,” Murray said. “I’m the last man to make that kind of prediction—I’ve been at this game too long. If you mean are there any obvious differences between this murder and the others, all I can say is yes and leave you to form your own conclusions.”

“All right, Professor, fire away.”

Murray lit a cigarette and paced up and down restlessly. “To start with the features which are similar. As in all the other cases, the neck was broken cleanly with a single powerful blow, probably a blunt instrument with a narrow edge.”

“Or the edge of the hand used by an expert,” Miller suggested.

“You’re thinking of karate, I suppose,” Murray smiled faintly. “Always possible, but beware of trying to make the facts fit your own suppositions, Nick. A great mistake in this game, or so I’ve found.”

“What other similarities were present, Professor?” Mallory asked, obviously annoyed at Miller’s interruption.

“No physical ones. Time, place, weather—that’s what I was meaning. Darkness and rain—the lonely street.”

“And the features in this one that don’t fit?” Henry Wade said. “What about those?”

“Recent bruising on the throat, another bruise on the right cheek as if someone had first grabbed her angrily around the neck and then struck her a violent blow, probably with his fist. The death blow came afterwards. Now this is a very real departure. In the other cases, there was no sign of violence except in the death blow itself. Quick, sharp, clean, obviously totally unexpected.”

“And in this case the girl obviously knew what was coming,” Mallory said.

Henry Wade shook his head. “No, I’m afraid that won’t work, sir. If she was attacked by an unknown assailant, she’d have put up some sort of a struggle, even if it was only to get her nails to his face. We didn’t find any signs that would indicate that such a struggle took place.”

“Which means that she stood there and let someone knock her about,” Mallory said. “Someone she knew.”

“I don’t see how we can be certain of that, sir.” Miller couldn’t help pointing out what seemed an obvious flaw. “She was on the game after all. Why couldn’t she have been up that alley with a potential customer?”

Again the irritation was noticeable in Mallory’s voice. “Would she have stood still while he grabbed her throat, fisted her in the face? Use your intelligence, Sergeant. It’s quite obvious that she took a beating from someone she was perfectly familiar with and she took it because she was used to it.”

“I think the Superintendent’s got a point, Nick,” Henry Wade said. “We’re all familiar with the sort of relationship a prostitute has with her minder. Beatings are the order of the day, especially when the pimp thinks his girl isn’t coughing up all her earnings and the women take their hidings quietly, too. God knows why. I suppose a psychiatrist would have an answer.”

“True enough,” Miller admitted.

“And there’s one important point you’re forgetting,” Wade added. “In every Rainlover case yet he’s always taken some memento. Either an article of clothing or a personal belonging. That doesn’t seem to have happened here.”

“Anything else, Miller?” Mallory enquired.

“Was there any cash in her handbag, sir?”

“Two or three pounds in notes and silver.”

“Faulkner said he gave her a ten-pound note.”

“Exactly, Sergeant.” Mallory gave him a slight, ironic smile. “Any suggestions as to what happened to it?”

“No, sir.” Miller sighed. “So we’re back to Harold Phillips?”

“That’s right and I want him pulled in now. You can take Brady with you.”

“And Faulkner, sir?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Sergeant, don’t you ever take no for an answer?”

There was an electric moment and then Murray cut in smoothly. “All very interesting, gentlemen, but you didn’t allow me to finish my story. If it’s of any use to you, the girl had intercourse just before her death.”

Mallory frowned. “No suggestion of rape, is there?”

“None whatsoever. In view of the conditions I would say the act took place against the wall and definitely with her consent. Of course one can’t judge whether under threat or not.”

Mallory got to his feet. “Only another nail in his coffin.” He turned to Miller. “Go and get Phillips now and bring the clothes he was wearing last night. I’ll expect you back within half an hour.”

There was a time to argue and a time to go quietly. Miller went without a word.

Miller met Brady coming down the steps of the main entrance of the Town Hall. “You look as if you’ve lost a quid and found a tanner,” he told Miller. “What’s up?”

“We’ve got to pull Harold Phillips in right away. Mallory thinks he’s the mark.”

“Harold—the Rainlover?” Brady said incredulously.

Miller shook his head. “Could be this wasn’t a Rainlover killing, Jack. There were differences—I’ll explain on the way.”

“Did you and Mallory have a row or something?” Brady asked as they went down the steps to the Mini-Cooper.

“Not quite. He’s got the bit between his teeth about Harold and I just don’t see it, that’s all.”

“And what about Faulkner?”

“The other side of the coin. Mallory thinks exactly as I do about Harold.”

“He could change his mind,” Brady said as they got in the car. “I’ve just seen a report from Dwyer, the beat man who found the body and got slugged.”

“How is he?” Miller said as he switched on the ignition and drove away.

“A bit of concussion, that’s all. They’re holding him in the infirmary for observation. There’s an interesting titbit for you in his report though. Says that about ten minutes before finding the body, he bumped into a bloke leaving the coffee stall in Regent Square.”

“Did he recognise him?”

“Knows him well—local resident. A Mr. Bruno Faulkner.”

The Mini-Cooper swerved slightly as Miller glanced at him involuntarily. “Now that is interesting.”

He slowed suddenly, turning the car into the next street and Brady said, “Now where are we going? This isn’t the way to Narcia Street.”

“I know that coffee stall,” Miller said. “Run by an old Rugby pro called Sam Harkness. He usually closes about nine on a Sunday morning after catching the breakfast trade.”

Brady shook his head sadly. “Mallory is just going to love you for this. Ah well, a short life and a merry one.” He eased back in the seat and started to fill his pipe.

Rain drifted across Regent Square in a grey curtain and when Miller braked to a halt, there were only two customers at the coffee stall, all-night taxi drivers eating fried egg sandwiches in the shelter of the canopy. Miller and Brady ran through the rain and Harkness turned from the stove, a frying pan in his hand.

“Oh, it’s you, Mr. Miller. Looking for breakfast?”

“Not this time, Sam,” Miller said. “Just a little information. You know about last night’s murder in Dob Court?”

“Don’t I just? Cars around here most of the night. Did all right out of it in tea and wads, I can tell you.”

“I’ve just been looking at Constable Dwyer’s report on what happened. He says he called here about ten past ten.”

“That’s right.”

“I understand you had a customer who was just leaving—a Mr. Bruno Faulkner according to Dwyer.”

Harkness nodded and poured out a couple of teas. “Artist. Lives round the corner from here. Regular customer of mine. Turns out at any old time in the a.m. when he’s run out of fags. You know what they’re like, these blokes.”

“And it was cigarettes he wanted last night was it?” Brady asked.

“He bought twenty Crown King-size. As a matter of fact I’m waiting for him to look in again. He left a pair of gloves—lady’s gloves.”

He searched under the counter and produced them. They were in imitation black leather, heavily decorated with pieces of white plastic and diamanté, cheap and ostentatious—the sort of thing that was to be found in any one of a dozen boutiques which had sprung up in the town of late to cater for the needs of young people.

“Rather funny really,” Harkness said. “He pulled them out of his pocket when he was looking for change. I said they were hardly his style. He seemed a bit put out to me. Tried to make out they were his fiancée’s, but that was just a load of cobblers if you ask me. She’s been here with him—his fiancée I mean—Joanna Hartmann. You see her on the telly all the time. Woman like that wouldn’t wear this sort of rubbish.”

Amazing how much people told you without being asked.
Miller picked up the gloves. “I’ll be seeing Mr. Faulkner later this morning, Sam. I’ll drop these in at the same time.”

“Probably still in bed with the bird they belong to,” Harkness called. “Bloody artists. I should be so lucky.”

“So Faulkner had Grace Packard’s gloves in his pocket,” Brady said when they got back to the Mini-Cooper. “So what? He didn’t deny having her at his flat. He’ll simply say she left the gloves by mistake or something.”

Miller handed him the gloves, took out his wallet and produced a pound note. “This is on me, Jack. Take a taxi to the Packard house. I don’t suppose the mother’s in too good a state, but see if the father can give you a positive identification on those gloves. Come straight on to Narcia Street from there. I’ll be waiting for you.”

“Mallory isn’t going to like this.”

“That’s just too bloody bad. How far did you get with Mrs. Phillips’ doctor?”

“He wouldn’t discuss it on the phone. It’s that Indian bloke—Lal Das. You know what these wogs are like. Give ’em an inch and they’ll take a mile every time.”

“All right, Jack, all right, I’ll see him myself,” Miller said, an edge to his voice for the kind of racial prejudice that seemed to be part of the make-up of so many otherwise decent men like Brady was guaranteed to bring out the worst in him.

“Half an hour then,” Brady said, checking his watch. “That’s all it should take.”

“I’ll wait for you outside.” Miller watched him run across to one of the taxis, got into the Mini-Cooper and drove away quickly.