The Garden Party (15 page)

‘But is it the two men we are interested in who you remember?' Swannell clarified. He handed a print of the E-fits which had appeared in that day's early edition of the
Evening Standard
.

‘Oh yes . . . yes, I don't need to see the photographs again. It was those two.' Violet Mayfield took hold of the prints of the E-fits anyway and studied them closely. ‘Yes, same two men. Definitely. One tall, one short. I mean there was nothing like what you might call strange about them, just two blokes who shared the basement room. Two single beds, mind. I don't allow any of that nonsense in my house. No, my old man would turn in his urn if he knew that was going on; yes, he would turn in his urn. But I had no complaints about them; they came and went and paid their rent on time. They was as good as gold, really, as good as gold. Then they were not here . . . just gone. Seems like they just left.'

‘You mean they did a moonlight flit?'

‘No . . . no, they couldn't have done because I take my rent in advance, always have done; two weeks in advance for that reason. They left all their kit behind, all their stuff – clothes, dole signing card – things they'd need they left behind, yes, they did, all of it, all of it 'cept what they stood up in, I suppose. I suppose they took that. I mean they had to do that, didn't they?'

‘What were their names?' Swannell asked. ‘Can you remember?'

‘Leonard Convers and Sydney Tyrell. Tyrell was the tall one, yes, he was; Tyrell the tall . . . so Convers was the short one.'

‘You have a very good memory.' Frankie Brunnie smiled warmly.

Violet Mayfield returned the smile. ‘Wish I could say that but I can't, darling. Like I told you, I forget things easily these days. No, it's their rent books with their names on the front. I kept them didn't I? But I do like to keep my brain alive, what's left of it. I write figures down and add them up or subtract them from each other, and multiply and divide as well. My old man went demented in the end. I don't want to be like that, not at all. I knew he was going demented when he put his underpants on his head one day.'

‘Yes.' Brunnie nodded. ‘I have heard that this is often one of the early symptoms.'

‘Really?' Swannell turned to Brunnie.

‘Yes,' Brunnie addressed Swannell, ‘as is forgetting a word just before you are about to use it and having some sense that it's going away from you, as if it is being lifted out of your head and then disappears up into space.'

‘Yes –' Violet Mayfield looked up at the ceiling – ‘my Albert was like that. He forgot words, then he put his underpants on his head, then he got to thinking that he was a little boy. Eventually they took him to hospital and he didn't come back, poor old soul. So I exercise my brain for half an hour each and every day, so I do.'

‘Good for you.' Swannell smiled. ‘Keep it up.'

‘Well, it's for my own sake isn't it? I mean, as much as anything it's for my own sake.'

‘So, the two men, Convers and Tyrell . . .' Swannell refocussed the discussion and beside him he noticed Frankie Brunnie take out his notepad and his ballpoint pen.

‘Yes, those two.' Violet Mayfield handed the E-fit back to Swannell. ‘Convers and Tyrell, well, they left seven years since. I have their rent books; I still got them. I keep them all. It helps me to put a face to a name.' She stood slowly, awkwardly, levering herself up out of the armchair in which she sat, struggling to her feet and then she walked unsteadily to the sideboard which stood against the wall adjacent to the fireplace and pulled open a drawer. Extracting two small brown-coloured rent books from the drawer, she turned and handed them to Swannell, returned to her chair and sat in it, heavily so.

‘Seven years ago.' Swannell nodded slightly as he opened the books and read the last entry in each. He handed the rent books to Brunnie who also glanced at the last entry in each and then gave them back to Violet Mayfield. ‘Did they leave anything?'

‘Yes, like I said, they left everything, everything they were not wearing when they left my house for the last time; clothes, shoes, all their knick-knacks. They didn't have much, so not a lot was left.' Violet Mayfield breathed with clear difficulty.

‘What did you do with it?' Brunnie asked.

‘Put it all in plastic bags, kept it for a couple of months and when it seemed plain they were not going to come back for it I left it in the doorway of the nearest charity shop. Yes, I did.'

‘Fair enough.' Swannell glanced round the room; he found it neat and well ordered. ‘Can you remember anything about them, the two men, Convers and Tyrell?'

‘Not a lot. They didn't say much . . . they came, they went, but they were definitely iffy; a right iffy pair of toerags if you ask me.' Violet Mayfield breathed shallowly then took a single deep breath.

‘You thought so?' Brunnie asked. ‘You thought they were dodgy?'

‘Well, it's the way of it.' Violet Mayfield seemed to relax once again. ‘You get a nose for it, don't you? It must be the same in your old line of work; get a nose for the bad ones. But they were low-down iffies, well low-down; not high-up iffies. I mean, what high-up villain would live in my basement?'

Swannell thought that Violet Mayfield had made a valid point. Her basement, he thought, would be the sort of accommodation sought by bottom feeders in London's underworld, the very lowest in the food chain.

‘They didn't work,' Violet Mayfield added, ‘they didn't have no proper job. Claimed dole and did a bit here and there. They had more spare cash than most doleys, enough to go down the boozer for the hour before last orders is called, so they had that bit of extra spending money coming in. So they were duckin' and divin'. Then they left as if going somewhere and never came back, no they didn't, never came back. Not at all.'

‘Did they have any visitors?' Brunnie asked. ‘Any that you remember?'

‘None.' Violet Mayfield shook her head vigorously. ‘I wouldn't ever allow visitors, not ever.'

‘Do you think that we were a little unfair there?' Penny Yewdall squinted against the glare of the sun as she and Tom Ainsclough walked casually away from the castle-like edifice of Brixton Prison towards Brixton Hill Road. ‘A bit out of order? Misleading him perhaps?'

Tom Ainsclough half glanced at her. ‘You mean that we let him believe that he could negotiate commuting a plea of guilty to involuntary manslaughter in return for a reduced sentence when we both knew such was never going to happen? I mean, not after the mess he made of “Stepney” Stevenson's face and head?'

‘Yes, that's what I mean.'

‘No, I think we greased the wheels of the interview and nothing more.' Tom Ainsclough's eye was caught by the blue-shirted bus driver of a red double-decker bus as it whirred along Brixton Hill. There was, he thought, something East European in the man's appearance, as though the man was Polish or Czech, something he could not put his finger on as he received the image for a second or two. He was, Ainsclough thought, less relaxed-looking and more serious-minded than is usual for drivers of buses in London, as if more eager to please. Neater also, with a perfectly ironed shirt, a sober-minded manner which betrayed no sense of humour; definitely, Ainsclough felt, not a home-grown bus driver. ‘I wouldn't worry,' he continued, ‘Charlie Magg has been round the block often enough to know how the CPS works. He knows he won't be able to negotiate anything at all unless he signs a statement or two and then climbs into the witness box. He's got to sign and climb and he knows it. What we did, if anything, was to take him on a little journey into cloud cuckoo land and I think he allowed us to take him there.'

‘Signs and climbs,' Penny Yewdall echoed.

‘And frankly,' Tom Ainsclough continued, ‘after what he did to “Stepney” Stevenson, turning him into a vegetable for five thousand pounds, prior to the plug being pulled on the wretched man's life-support system, and then implicating himself in the murder of another man by pushing him off a twelve storey block of flats, and being party to tying another felon across a railway line . . .'

‘You think he was there?' Penny Yewdall looked at Tom Ainsclough.

‘Certain of it,' Ainsclough replied. ‘The details were too numerous, too precise . . . the sound of the rails singing and the man pleading. He was there all right. So that is two cold cases we can warm up. We can cross-reference them to this inquiry, especially if those two blokes were murdered on Arnie Rainbird's behest.' Ainsclough paused. ‘No, we didn't do anything back there to compromise ourselves. No way, no way at all . . . Charlie Magg is going where he belongs and he is going there for a long, long time. I promise you, you and I will be pensioners before he walks into a pub for a pint of beer again. If ever.'

‘If ever . . .' Penny Yewdall opened her handbag and rummaged for her car keys.

Harry Vicary sat behind his desk and leaned slowly backwards in his chair. Frankie Brunnie, Penny Yewdall, Tom Ainsclough and Vic Swannell sat silently in a semicircle in front of Vicary's desk.

‘So what do we know about Convers and Tyrell?' Vicary glanced out of his office window at the buildings of central London and the expanse of blue sky above. ‘Anything?'

‘Petty crooks, sir.' Swannell consulted a computer printout. ‘Very petty. Enough to get accepted by organized crime as gofers. They both appear to have living relatives so we should be able to get a DNA match on the bones very speedily, but I think we can assume that the bones are those of Convers and Tyrell.'

‘Yes, it seems a safe assumption, but it remains an assumption. We must try and link them to Arnie Rainbird.' Vicary paused. ‘Now, that party up in Bedfordshire . . . some seven years ago . . . you say.'

‘Yes, sir,' Penny Yewdall responded in an alert manner, ‘seven years ago this summer.'

‘That sounds interesting. We really need to know more about that party. It seems that it was Desmond Holst who wrote the note and drove the bus load of girls up from London on the pretext of good money for one evening's work . . . and Convers and Tyrell disappeared before the party?'

‘Yes, sir.' Swannell again consulted the computer printout. ‘A few weeks prior to the party.'

‘All right . . . all right . . . So what do we know about the house?'

‘New build property, sir,' Yewdall responded, ‘fairly remote. According to Charlie Magg it is guarded like the Tower of London, at least it was when he was running with Arnie Rainbird's team. He seems to have fallen out of favour but he remains loyal. He gave enough information but nothing specific.'

‘More background information really,' Tom Ainsclough added. ‘He wasn't interested in going into witness protection but he gave a clear indication that something very heavy went down at that party.'

‘Again, interesting, and people who guard their homes like that always intrigue me. Do we know who owns the house?'

‘Johnny “Snakebite” Herron, he's got form for armed robbery but is also a known associate of Arnie Rainbird,' Penny Yewdall explained. ‘Like Arnie Rainbird, he's adept at keeping himself off the radar, but Charlie Magg told us he was very likely to be making his money through a people-smuggling racket. It's very appealing to the likes of Arnie Rainbird, apparently, good profits to be made and penalties they laugh at.'

‘Especially if they don't get their hands dirty,' Tom Ainsclough added, ‘which they allegedly do not.'

‘All right.' Vicary reached for his pen and notepad. ‘Let's see if we can draw up a timeline. So, seventeen years ago Arnie Rainbird goes down for twenty years and comes out after doing ten. About the time he comes out, Convers and Tyrell go missing. Then a few weeks after he comes out, as if waiting for the summer weather, a party is thrown to celebrate his release, wherein something of interest happens, enough to intimidate a bus load of cheated but hard-nosed women into silence. Then some years after the party a geezer who appeared to have been a gofer for Arnie Rainbird's mob leaves a note in a wall he is rebuilding, which he knows will be found some day; it would probably still be hidden had it not been for a drunken driver who rammed and demolished said wall with his motor vehicle.' Vicary tapped his pen on his notepad. ‘There's an awful lot of smoke here. We need to find the fire.' He paused. ‘So, what's for action?'

‘We need to know about Arnie Rainbird, sir,' Swannell offered, ‘why he went down for twenty years. We need to know where he is now . . . what he's up to.'

‘Yes.' Vicary nodded in agreement. ‘We must pay a call on him, set the cat among the pigeons; let him know we are developing a keen interest in him.'

‘We have to find the house in Bedfordshire, sir,' Frankie Brunnie suggested.

‘Yes, we'll contact the Bedfordshire Constabulary; a little local knowledge will be useful. They probably know of the house if “Snakebite” Herron has a record, which he does have. So, Frankie and Victor, I'd like you two to stay teamed up together. Call on Arnie Rainbird and say hello from the Metropolitan Police, then find out all you can about the house in Bedfordshire and all about “Snakebite” Herron.'

‘Got it, sir,' Frankie Brunnie replied.

‘Penny.'

‘Sir?'

‘Find out all you can about the school teacher Charlie Magg mentioned, then take a trip up to Chesterfield. That's a one-hander, no need to partner up for that.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘That leaves you with the task of confirming the ID of Convers and Tyrell, Tom. OK with you?'

‘OK with me.' Tom Ainsclough nodded. ‘OK with me.'

Harry Vicary took the tube to Leytonstone. From Leytonstone Underground Station he walked casually up Church Lane, which was lined with small shops and which had flats above them. When at the top of the lane, outside the church itself, he chose to extend his walk by turning down Leytonstone High Street, despite always finding it fume filled, being too narrow in his view to accommodate the volume of traffic which it now carried. He looked calmly into the shops as he walked past them and, crossing the road, he walked up Michael Road and thus into suburbia. He crossed over Mornington Road, being a quiet street of owner-occupied housing, and then joined Bushwood, and thus enjoyed the expanse of green that was Wanstead Flats, and which, he believed, allowed Leytonstone to breathe. Without the Flats or the park beyond the Flats, he reasoned, there would be little breathable air in the borough. He turned left into Hartley Road, being a neat terrace of late nineteenth-century terraced housing, with small gardens in front of the houses to separate them slightly from the pavement and larger gardens to the rear. As he opened the front door his wife stepped forward and embraced him warmly.