The Price of Love and Other Stories (28 page)

“Didn’t Jock tell you I wasn’t to be disturbed?” the man said.

“I’m afraid not,” said Banks.

“Bastard. Don’t think I don’t know he’s got his beady little eyes on Melissa. Well he’ll get his bloody marching orders now.” He rubbed his crotch. “Bloody hell, that was close. Could do a man serious damage, that sort of thing. What if she’d snapped her jaw shut in panic?”

Banks smiled. “Then you’d be singing soprano, wouldn’t you, Mr ….?”

“Police, I assume, by the looks of you. At least you’d better be after an entrance like that.”

Banks showed his warrant card.

“Cornell. Gerry Cornell.” The man stood up, slicked his greasy hair back and offered his hand.

“Better not,” said Banks. “I don’t know where it’s been. And maybe you should zip up your flies before anyone gets the wrong idea.”

“Oh, right,” said Cornell. “Put Percy away, eh?” He zipped up his flies, grinned and sat down again. “What can I do you for?”

“You new here? I don’t remember you.”

“Six months.”

It had been more than that long since Banks had last been called to the Naughty Nites, and then it had to do with fencing stolen jewellery, he remembered. “Just a friendly chat, for starters, Gerry. Pamela Morrison. Name ring a bell?”

“Pamela? Sure. She works here sometimes. Little bitch didn’t turn up tonight, mind you. Some of them seem to think I run a charity here. You’d be –”

“She’s dead, Mr. Cornell. Murdered. Anything you can tell me about her would be much appreciated.”

Cornell’s mouth flapped like a dying fish’s. “B-b-b-but … dead … ?”

“Yes.”

“Pamela? How?”

“Maybe we could start with where you were last night?”

“Me? I was here.”

“All night?”

“Eight till three, same as always. You ask anyone. Surely you can’t think I had anything to do with it. Why would I want –”

“I don’t think anything yet,” said Banks. “It’s too early for that. I don’t have many facts, and I don’t like to speculate too much in advance of the facts.”

Cornell blinked twice and reached for a cigarette. “Right,” he said. “Drink?”

“No, thanks.” Banks wasn’t being particularly moral. He had no qualms against taking drinks from people like Cornell when they were offered. It was just that he thought he might have time to nip over to Linda’s for an hour or so to unwind before going home, and
he didn’t want to spoil it by having too much to drink beforehand. He could have one there. Linda always kept a bottle of good Scotch handy. He sat down.

“OK, Mr. Cornell,” said Banks, “even if you didn’t kill her, you might be able to tell us something about her.”

“Pamela? Not much to tell, really. She was usually reliable. Pretty. Good dancer. Not like some of them. Not a lot up there.” He paused and tapped his head. “But she really knew her stuff, like she’d had lessons, you know, ballet school or something.”

“Yeah,” said Banks. “I can imagine ballet lessons would come in really useful in a place like this.”

“No need to be insulting. You know what I mean. Not that she was cultured or anything. Had one of those northern accents you could scale a fish with.”

“When did you last see her?”

Cornell sucked on his cigarette and furrowed his brow. “Yesterday, I suppose,” he said. “She was working the lunch shift. She didn’t like it. None of them do. Lousy tips at lunchtime. But you’ve got to please the punters, and we get quite a lot of respectable businessmen in at that time of day. City gents and the like, relaxing after a tough morning wheeling and dealing. People who wouldn’t be caught dead here after dark.”

“I’ll bet you do,” said Banks. “So Pamela would have been free to pursue her other activities yesterday evening?”

“What other activities?”

“Don’t be coy with me, Mr. Cornell. We know that most of your dancers are on the game. Who runs them? You?”

“What they do in their own time is nothing to do with me. I run a respectable business here catering to –”

“Never mind the bollocks, Gerry. I know how it works. The girls make dates in the booths. They –”

Cornell stubbed out his cigarette and licked his lips. “All right,” he said. “I’m not saying it doesn’t go on. Of course it does. This is
Soho. But what can you do? I turn a blind eye. Maybe some of them are on the game. But I mean it when I say that’s got nothing to do with me. I’m not a pimp. I’m a club manager. I have no desire to be a pimp. It’s an ugly business. I –”

“Matthew Micallef.”

Banks could swear that Cornell turned a shade paler. “Come again?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of him,” Banks went on. “How does it work? Do you get a piece of the action? You let him use your club to prey on the dancers, see if they maybe want to supplement their measly incomes with a bit of freelance work, and in return he gives you –”

“Micallef gives nobody nothing,” said Cornell. “If you’re lucky he leaves you alone. And alive. If you’re lucky he doesn’t slit your throat or torch your club.”

“Sounds like a nice bloke.”

“You think you’re funny. He’s a big man around here, and he’s big because people are scared of him. And people are scared of him because he doesn’t make empty threats. He goes where he wants, he does what he wants and nobody – not even your lot – even thinks about trying to stop him. And you didn’t hear any of that from me.”

“Is he here tonight?”

“I haven’t seen him.”

“Was he here last night?”

“I didn’t see him. He doesn’t come in here, not often. He’s not interested in the clubs.”

“Only as a hunting ground?”

“Yeah, well … they’re hardly the only places these days, or even the best, especially after the clean-up campaign. But I’m telling you the truth. I haven’t seen him in … must be three or four weeks. And if I never see him again it’ll be fine with me.”

“Did you notice Pamela with anyone yesterday lunchtime while she was here?”

“No. I wasn’t really paying attention. I just had to drop by the office to pick something up, and she happened to be dancing at the time.”

“Who should I talk to?”

“Cathy Carson. Day manager.”

“A woman?”

Cornell shrugged. “It’s an equal opportunities business.”

Banks stood up. “OK, Gerry,” he said, “I’m going to rustle up a couple of DCs and they’ll have a chat with as many of your customers and dancers as they can get through tonight. Then they’ll come back and continue tomorrow.”

“Do you have any idea what that –”

“I don’t care what it will do to your business, Gerry. There’s been a murder here and somebody has to know something.”

“Fine, fine,” said Cornell holding his palms up in mock surrender. “Do what you have to do. I’m just a poor bloke trying to make an honest living.”

“You wouldn’t know an honest living if one bit you on the arse,” said Banks.

“Can you do me a favour?” Cornell asked as Banks opened the door.

Banks turned. “What?”

Cornell scratched his ear. “Can you ask Melissa to come back in? We’ve got a bit of unfinished business.”

“Christ,” said Linda when Banks finally rolled off her. “You were a real animal tonight. Is that what hanging around the Soho clubs does to you?”

“Must be.” Banks reached for a cigarette, lit two and passed one to Linda. She pulled up the sheet around her throat. Why did women do that? Banks wondered. It wasn’t only in movies, but in real life, too. It
wasn’t cold, and he’d seen it all before. Recently, in fact. He reached for his tumbler of Scotch on the bedside table and took a sip. The amber liquid burned his throat going down. Linda kissed him briefly then jumped out of bed and wrapped her black and red kimono-style dressing gown around her, fastening the sash. She was a long-legged, willowy brunette in her mid twenties, and the kimono looked good on her. “I fancy a cup of chamomile tea,” she said. “Want some?”

“No, ta,” said Banks, waving the tumbler. “I’ll stick with this.”

Linda went into the kitchen and Banks sat up and worked on his whisky. What the hell was he doing here, he asked himself, when he had a wife and two children at home? He liked Linda well enough, and the sex was good – terrific, in fact – but he had always thought of himself as the faithful, monogamous type, hardly a philanderer.

He had met her on a course at Hendon, and there had been something about her natural self-possession and air of solitariness that drew him to her. It had still taken him a long time to ring the phone number she had given him, and even longer to make the leap into her bed, but he had done it. There was no justification, no excuse; it was an unpleasant truth that he had to accept about himself. He was being unfaithful for the first time in his life. He felt guilty most of the time, but he had learned to live with it.

It had worked well enough so far. And because she was a copper, too, they understood each other. They could talk about things he would never even think of mentioning to Sandra. In fact, they could talk about anything with a level of understanding that amazed him. Sometimes they didn’t even need to talk. Each knew, or sensed, the mood of the other, the kind of day they’d had. Sometimes he even carried on conversations with her in his mind when they were apart.

But they weren’t
in love
. That wasn’t what it was about. If the arrangement ended tomorrow, Banks knew he would miss his stolen hours with Linda – the lovemaking, the talks, the smell of chamomile tea, the swishing sound her kimono made when she walked, the
untidiness of her flat – but nothing more. And she gave no signs of feeling any differently.

Linda came back in with her tea and nestled beside him on the large bed. “You’ll be leaving here soon, won’t you?” she said.

“I’ll have to go home before long, yes.”

Linda blew on her tea and watched the steam rise. “No, I don’t mean that. Here. London. You are thinking of leaving, aren’t you?”

“How did you know that?” Banks was astonished. He hadn’t told anyone of his tentative forays into North Yorkshire – made only by telephone and letter so far, but even so …

“Call it woman’s intuition,” she said. “On second thought, you’d better not, or I’ll bash you. I can say it but you can’t.”

“No, seriously.”

“I don’t know. Just something about you these past few weeks. Something’s changed. I can’t put my finger on it. I know it sounds weird, but I feel you sort of slipping away. Not from me, so much. I mean, this isn’t personal, I’m not coming on all possessive or anything, but it’s like you’re slowly withdrawing, fading away. Soon there’ll be nothing left but your smile, like the Cheshire cat.”

Banks supposed it was a fairly accurate summary of how he was feeling, though from his perspective, perhaps Alice falling down the rabbit hole was a better image. She was a smart one, that Linda, no doubt about it. “You should be a psychiatrist, or a psychic,” he said.

“So it’s true?”

“There’s an opening coming up in North Yorkshire later this year. Retirement. It’s a DCI position, but it’s not so much the promotion I’m after. I’ve made a few inquiries, and I’ve been invited up there for an informal chat with the super.”

“You’re serious about it?”

“Yes.” Banks turned to face her. “It’s not you, nothing like that. My life is … I don’t know. It feels like it’s sort of spiralling out of control. Things are getting too weird. Maybe you’re part of it, too, my being here. I don’t know.”

She rested her hand on his bare chest. “Alan, there never were any strings or expectations. Remember that. I’ll miss you if you go away, but I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself. I’ll survive.”

“I know you will. I didn’t mean that. It’s just me. I don’t feel grounded at all. I’m all over the map.”

“And you think moving up north will help?”

“I don’t know. It’ll be different, that’s for sure. All I know is that I feel the need to get away. From London, not you. I can still come down and see –”

Linda laughed. “Let’s not fool ourselves,” she said. “It’s been fun. Will be for a bit longer, I hope. But when you’re gone, you’re gone. Let go with both hands.”

Banks looked at her, the dark eyes, smooth pale skin, the tiny rose-patterned teacup with its gold rim pressing against her lower lip. She was beguiling, and in another life … “Maybe nothing will come of it,” he said.

“And what will you do then?”

“I don’t know.”

Linda put her cup down, and as she leaned over to do so, the top of her kimono slid off her shoulder. “Look at me,” she said, blushing, moving to rearrange it.

But Banks grasped her hand and pulled her gently towards him. “Leave it,” he said.

They kissed, then she nestled her head against his chest. “Hold me, Alan,” she said. “Just hold me for a while.”

While Banks was waiting for Pamela’s parents to arrive and make the formal identification the following morning, he read over the statements taken at the Naughty Nites Club, and finding nothing of interest there, he decided to pay Jackie Simmons a visit in Shoreditch. She knew more than she had told him, and perhaps a night’s sleep had altered her perspective. Albright could go to the Naughty Nites
and question Cathy Carson. Not that she was likely to know anything, either.

Things had been cool at home, perhaps because he hadn’t got in until past two. Of course, everyone was asleep by then. He had glanced in on the children first, and when he got into bed, Sandra had stirred and murmured something, but he hadn’t caught it. He had turned over, wrapped himself up in his mantle of guilt and drifted off into what passed for sleep these days. Sandra had caught him at the door the next morning trying to sneak out before anyone else woke up, and asked him in a frosty tone when he thought they might be able to eat dinner again as a family. He had muttered something about a new murder investigation and left in a hurry.

Now it was close to lunchtime and, as he’d had no breakfast, he was starving. He thought he might take Jackie to the local pub for a drink and a bite to eat. She might relax a bit more in that sort of environment than in the flat she had shared with her murdered friend. He had had a word with Albright at the station and the search of Pamela’s room had turned up nothing of interest.

Jackie answered the door dressed in jeans and a Eurythmics T-shirt. Banks didn’t reckon much to the Eurythmics. In fact, he didn’t reckon much to any of the pop music he’d heard in the past ten years apart from some of the punk and new wave bands – The Clash, Talking Heads, Television. As far as he was concerned, you could keep your Phil Collins, Tears for Fears and Fine Young Cannibals. Even his old sixties favourites, like Van Morrison, the Stones and Dylan, seemed to have fallen into a rut. Mostly, he’d been exploring jazz and had recently become interested in opera – a whole new world to explore. But he didn’t have the free time he needed to devote to long operatic works lately, and he certainly had neither the time nor the money to go to Covent Garden.