Killing Time (31 page)

He smelled him first. As soon as the man moved, and before the moving air brought a sound to his ears, Slider’s nose picked up the cologne. Subtle, expensive. He put his back to the wall and looked into the darkness for the movement and said softly, ‘Who’s that?’

‘De Glanville.’ It was the voice on the phone – one worry down, anyway. ‘It’s all right. You weren’t followed.’ The voice came closer as it spoke, and now he appeared beside Slider in the entrance to the arch. Taller than Slider, but not by much; well-built without being heavy. A handsome, dark face with designer stubble making it look darker; thick, longish dark hair, brushed back and bronze-tipped and styled in a classy salon – or at least an expensive one. He was wearing the undercover cop’s favoured blouson-style jacket, in suede – new enough for Slider to smell that now, too – along with dark trousers and black leather casual shoes with thick soles. He had a gold and jet stud in one ear, expensive and discreetly unconventional. The intelligent brown eyes were watchful in a face made firm by responsibility. A man who could look after himself and expected to win. To Slider he had copper stamped all over him. No wonder Yates had clocked him.

‘Why here?’ Slider asked.

‘It was the only place I could be sure you’d know without my naming it. Mobiles are not secure. That’s why I called this meet.’

Called this meet
, Slider smiled inwardly. How they all loved
playing cops and robbers! He had the strong desire to call de Glanville ‘son’; but probably the danger de Glanville faced was real and desperate. ‘You’re going to tell me what’s going on?’ he said hopefully.

‘I was in favour of telling you in the first place,’ de Glanville said. He had a slight accent: Slider couldn’t decide what. There was something about the ‘e’ in ‘telling’ and the ‘th’ in ‘the’. ‘I don’t want local boys trampling all over my investigation, busting in on me and blowing my cover.’

‘Believe me, I don’t want to do that either,’ Slider said patiently. ‘If I know where the land mines are, I’ll know not to tread on them, won’t I?’

De Glanville smiled, a brief flash of very white teeth in the dark lower half of his face. Slider thought women would find him attractive. Perhaps it was necessary to his job. ‘I’ve already had your oppo under my feet. What’s his name? Carver? Why don’t you people ever talk to each other?’

‘Beats the hell out of me. Look what I had to go through to get to talk to you,’ Slider said.

‘True. All right. Let’s get on the park. I’m in at the Pomona – I guess you know that.’ He used ‘guess’ as a foreigner uses it, not an Americanism. Could it be that he was a real Frenchman? But he didn’t quite sound French.

‘Are you after Yates?’

‘Yates is a player, but he’s not the biggest. That’s why we don’t want him flushed out yet. It’s his bosses we’re after. But I had contact with the man you’re interested in – Jay Paloma.’

‘You met him in the club? Several times?’ De Glanville nodded. ‘You were spotted. Yates told me about you. He said he thought you were a dealer.’

‘He was supposed to,’ de Glanville said with a touch of complacency. Stand aside, redneck, and let the big city experts in. ‘Paloma was buying snow – you know that, don’t you? I’d seen him sniffing round a dealer I was interested in and for operational reasons I didn’t want him hanging around that particular area, so I told him I’d supply him.’

‘How did you get the stuff?’

‘You don’t want to know that. I knew who he was getting it for, so I supplied him for some time. I thought there might be some important connection that way. It did seem for a time that
our big player might be an MP and using Parliamentary privilege to shelter under. But it turned out to be a false lead. So I dropped Paloma.’

‘Wait a minute, let me get this straight. Did Paloma know who you were?’

‘Not
who –
but what.’

‘He was working for you, in fact.’

‘Effectively. I got him the stuff, he passed it on to his bum-chum and reported back to me. I primed him with the questions to ask and what to look out for. But as I said, it was a dead end.’

‘How did you persuade him to spy for you?’

‘It wasn’t hard,’ de Glanville said with a short laugh. ‘I was giving him the stuff at a fraction of the price, and he was pocketing the difference. He was perfectly happy. Plus I leaned on him a bit.’

‘Really?’ Slider said neutrally.

‘I had the goods on him, didn’t I? And you saw him: he was a bit precious – very dainty in his ways. He wouldn’t have liked a spell inside with all those nasty rough boys.’

‘Yes, that would scare him,’ Slider agreed. ‘When you dropped him, you told him you wouldn’t supply him any more?’

‘Of course. But he said he was getting out anyway. Saved enough of Grisham’s money to go back to Ireland. I said that was a good idea. Didn’t want him hanging around and maybe letting the cat out of the bag. Gave him a bit of a push in that direction, if you want to know. But as it happened, it wasn’t necessary.’ He shrugged. ‘Best result all round, really, when he got topped.’

Slider nodded politely. ‘I suppose you don’t know who did it?’

‘Nope,’ de Glanville said. ‘That’s your business.’

‘I told you that Yates had spotted you for a dealer, and you said he was supposed to. But it occurs to me that he might have blown your cover.’

‘Because Yates sent one of his goons round to hit Paloma?’

‘How the hell did you know that?’

‘It’s my business to know things. But I want Yates left alone. We’re very close now. I don’t want him spooked. And I want that gorilla of his sprung.’

Slider saw no reason to reveal his hand. He shrugged. ‘If you say so. But what about Cosgrove?’

‘Cosgrove was a worse problem to me because everyone knew he was a copper. He was clodhopping after Yates, and I had to get him warned off. I couldn’t have him hanging round the club.’

‘But do you know who whacked him?’

‘Nope. I got him off my back, that was all the mattered to me. He hadn’t been around there for weeks when it happened. But I doubt, frankly, if it was anything to do with Yates. Yates is too fly to put out a hit on a copper – and if he did, he’d do it more professionally than that. It had all the hallmarks of an amateur to me. But it’s not my case,’ he finished with a shrug.

‘It’s not mine, either,’ Slider said. ‘When did you last supply Paloma with any white?’

De Glanville considered. ‘It was the Thursday before he was killed. Thursday night stroke Friday morning. I suppose he gave it to his friend on Friday or Saturday and a happy weekend was had by all.’

‘And that’s when you told him you didn’t need him any more?’ De Glanville nodded. ‘So he knew before the weekend.’

‘Certainly. Now I’ve told you everything you need to know. You’ll stay away from the club and Yates from now on. I want everything to settle down again.’

‘What will happen to him?’ Slider asked.

‘Yates? Why, have you got some beef against him?’

Slider thought of Maroon, and Maltesa, and Candy, and all the other pathetic toms nobody cared about. Thank you, Mr Gladstone. But they had rights, like anyone else, and what they did was not illegal, that was what got him. Prostitution was not illegal – living off their backs, like Yates and his gorillas,
that
was illegal.

‘He’s responsible for beating up a girl I know,’ Slider said. All right, it was Jonah who broke Maroon’s face, but it was Yates who made Jonah possible.

De Glanville hesitated, but then his face softened a little in sympathy. ‘He’s going down. Don’t worry about that. We’ve got enough on him to send him away for ever and ever. As soon as we’ve sprung the trap on the top bosses, we’ll clean up the scumbags like Yates.’

‘And Jonah Lafota?’

‘Him too.’ Dark eyes gleamed in the darkness. ‘My promise on that.’

‘Thanks,’ said Slider.

De Glanville looked out of the arch at the quiet night. ‘It’s safe enough. You can go now.’

Slider said, ‘There is just one other question.’ De Glanville looked at him a little impatiently. ‘What
is
your accent? I can’t place it. I thought at first it was French, but now—’

The teeth whitened across the dark face. ‘What are you, Professor Higgins? Belgian Congo. Zaire. I was born there. My dad was in the diplomatic. But my mum’s British.’

‘Thanks,’ said Slider gratefully.

He went a long way round to get back to his car, for safety’s sake, but he saw nothing and felt nothing. He got in and drove. It looked after all as if there wasn’t any connection between the Paloma murder and the Cosgrove case, except stupid concurrence. He didn’t mind being wrong, but he absolutely hated Carver to be right, to say nothing of Wetherspoon. He thought about Carver and Wetherspoon at Honeyman’s party. It hadn’t looked terribly much like Wetherspoon telling Carver to back off and Carver saying yes sir, certainly sir. It had looked a lot more like Carver getting his hand down Wetherspoon’s trousers, and Wetherspoon saying I’ll pull strings for you, Ron, just don’t stop loving me. But as Hart had said, that was just paranoid. Anyway, Cosgrove was not his case and not his business. He must put it out of his head entirely.

So he drove to the pub where Busty was barmaid, to ask her the only other thing he hadn’t asked her – whether she knew Andy Cosgrove.

The pub was crowded, and Slider, scanning the bar for Busty, was surprised and amused to see that one of the bar stools was occupied by the trim, moley person of Busty’s tame taxi-driver. What was his name? Oh yes, Benny the Brief. He had one hand wrapped round a half-pint jug and the other was supporting a lighted cigarette, and as Slider came up behind him he saw that his eyes were fixed adoringly on the heavenly shape of Busty Parnell, serving down the other end of the bar in a pink sequinned sweater, low-cut enough to leave everything to be desired.

‘Hello there, Mr Fluss,’ Slider said, remembering his name at the last moment. ‘Drinking and driving? Tut tut.’

The little man started violently, and then smiled his crooked, multidentate smile as he recognised Slider. ‘Oh, I only have the one when I’m driving, don’t worry. I nurse it. I’m a great nurser. Can I get you one?’

‘No, thanks, I just came to have a quick word with Busty.’

Benny looked pained. ‘Valerie, please, or Miss Parnell. She’s not – that horrid name – any more. That belongs to the past. That’s all over. She’s a respectable woman now.’

‘Of course. I’m sorry,’ Slider said, amused. ‘It just slipped out. So you’re still on duty, are you?’

‘Not as such,’ Benny conceded. ‘But I’m keeping a clear head for driving Miss Parnell home when her shift finishes. That’s a sacred duty to me, so you don’t need to worry about me having too much, I can assure you.’ He burbled on a bit, but Slider wasn’t listening. Busty looked round at last and he caught her eye, and she came down to him with an eager look.

‘Hello! Have you got some news?’ she asked.

‘I’m afraid not. I just popped in to ask you something. Could I have a quick word?’ He flicked a warning glance Bennywards and she picked it up with commendable quickness.

‘Come down the other end, then, where it’s quieter,’ she said. ‘George, can you serve for me for a minute? Just five minutes. Thanks, love.’

At the other end of the bar she propped up the hatch and made a little quiet corner for them. Slider eased himself in beside her. ‘I see you’ve got an escort laid on for later,’ he said.

She made a face. ‘Oh, I can’t seem to shake him off. He’s been ever so kind since Maurice died, can’t do enough for me, but he gets on my nerves a bit. I’m thinking of setting George on him.’

‘That’s a bit cruel, isn’t it?’ George the barman was a low-browed, long-armed creature who looked like a genetic experiment gone horribly wrong. He was kindness itself, but his terrifying looks were too useful to the management for them to admit it publicly.

‘Well, just to tell him he can’t sit in here all evening nursing the same half,’ Busty said. ‘Anyway, what did you want to ask me?’

‘Do you know Andy Cosgrove?’

‘What, the copper? Of course. He got beaten up, didn’t he, poor soul, and left in a coma. Just before Maurice got – you know.’ She moved her head as though she could avoid the pain with the word.

‘That’s him. But I mean did you know him personally?’

‘Everybody on the estate knew him,’ Busty said. ‘He hasn’t gone and died, has he?’

‘No, there’s no change. You knew him to speak to?’

Busty smiled. ‘Oh yes. Well, he used to go out with a working girl, didn’t he? He always took a special interest in us.’

‘Did you know Maroon Brown, his girlfriend?’

‘Oh yeah. She used to live on the estate, did you know that?’

‘Yes, I knew that.’

‘And she used to come in here quite a bit. Met Andy here sometimes when he come off duty. Course, I haven’t seen her lately.’

‘So you knew Andy quite well?’

‘Oh yeah. Like I said, he had a soft spot for working girls.’ She glanced back down the bar at Benny the Brief and lowered her voice – unnecessarily – to say with a sporting grin, ‘Old Benny thought it was terrible – about Andy and Maroon.’

‘How did he know about them?’

‘I told him, a course. He didn’t half tut. Well, Andy’s a married man, and Maroon’s a full-time prostitute. And he didn’t like me mixing with bad hats like that. He’s a real old woman, sometimes, Benny.’

Slider was not interested in Busty’s guard-dog. ‘So when did you last see Andy?’

‘Couple of weeks ago. Not long before he was done over, as a matter of fact. He came to see me at the flat one afternoon, when Maurice was out. Doing a bit of sniffing around, he was, not that he came straight out with it. But I know when I’m being pumped.’

‘What did he want to know about?’

‘Oh, I dunno. Something about Billy Yates and Maurice. I didn’t get it at first. I thought he was after Maurice – you know, because of the stuff.’ She lowered her eyelids daintily at the mention. ‘But thinking about it later, I think he was hoping Maurice might have something on Mr Yates, to incriminate
him. He had a down on Billy Yates for some reason, did Andy. It wasn’t official police business,’ she added cannily, ‘’cause he didn’t come straight out with it. Just hinting around, you know.’