Murder at the Ritz Page 14

  ‘You’ve no proof,’ grated McGuinness.

  ‘I don’t need proof,’ retorted Coburg. ‘I know. I’ve got a description of one of them and your man Lofty is very distinctive with that chewed ear of his. It was a mistake to send him.’

  ‘I have never harmed a woman in my life,’ snapped McGuinness.

  ‘No, you just terrified her hoping she’d talk. Torture, it’s called. You don’t think that’s harming someone?’

  McGuinness bristled, and Coburg saw one of the big man’s eyes twitch slightly as he fought to hold his anger in check. ‘You can’t come in here to my own pub and talk to me like that.’

  ‘I can go wherever I like. I’m a Scotland Yard detective investigating a murder, and now the abduction and terrorising of an innocent woman.’

  ‘Who said she was terrorised?’

  ‘She did. Which is why she’s fled the city in fear of her life. You and your men get a kick out of that, do you? Frightening women? Well, I’m here to warn you, McGuinness, Julie Stafford may have fled, but there are other women still in that same house, and if anything happens to them, even if someone so much as follows them, I’ll have you inside so fast your feet won’t touch the ground. And I’ll make sure the other prisoners know why you’re there. A man who gets his pleasure from threatening women.’

  ‘I told you. I’ve never harmed a woman in my life!’ shouted McGuinness angrily, and this time he did get to his feet and leant menacingly towards Coburg.

  Coburg, in turn, edged forward so the two men were nose to nose.

  ‘Yes, I heard you, but I’m telling you, you’ve been warned,’ he said in firm tones. ‘Stay away from that house. Stay away from those women.’

  With that, Coburg headed for the door, Lampson behind him. As they reached the door it opened and Charley Barnes entered, then stopped at the sight of the two policemen. Unsmiling, Coburg nodded to Barnes in the briefest of greetings, then he and Lampson left.

  Barnes came over to McGuinness. ‘What did those two want?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing I can’t handle,’ said McGuinness.

  ‘Coburg looked pretty grim,’ observed Barnes.

  ‘I said, it’s nothing I can’t handle,’ snapped McGuinness angrily.

  ‘Yeh, all right, boss,’ said Barnes. ‘I just mentioned it. Anyway, I’ve just seen Den and Danny Bell.’

  ‘Both of ’em?’

  ‘You know them, boss. They’re rarely apart. I reckon it’s cos, deep down, they don’t trust one another. Anyway, Den said to tell you he was shocked to hear about the Four Feathers.’

  ‘Oh yeh?’ scowled McGuinness. ‘How did he say it?’

  ‘He didn’t grin or nothing,’ said Barnes. ‘It’s hard to tell with Den. He lies all the time so you can’t trust anything he says. Anyway, he swore it was nothing to do with them, and he said it was a good idea to meet to clear the air.’

  ‘Those were his exact words?’

  Barnes nodded.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Victoria Embankment Gardens by the bandstand. Three o’clock.’ Barnes looked apologetic. ‘It was the nearest I could get to somewhere neutral. They didn’t want to come over here.’

  McGuinness nodded. ‘All right. Fix up for some of our blokes to be watching, in case things turn nasty. But not to be conspicuous, so use blokes who are newish. We don’t want the Bell brothers to see a crowd of faces they know on their patch, that could queer things, and the point is I want to talk to them.’

  ‘Right, boss.’

  ‘Oh, and get hold of Chuck and Lofty. I want a word with them.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘About that little errand I sent them on.’

  Barnes looked concerned. ‘Did they do it all right?’

  ‘That’s what I want to find out.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Coburg let Lampson drive them back to the Yard. It gave him a chance to take in the air battle taking place to the south, the large German bombers, the Spitfire and Hurricanes attacking them like angry gnats, and the German planes, the Messerschmidts, hurling themselves at the RAF fighters. Coburg guessed that Hitler had believed victory would be achieved within a few days, perhaps a week at most. Yet here they were, a fortnight further on, and despite all the destruction of planes and buildings, and the number of pilot casualties, every day the young pilots were still rising up in their fighter planes from the damaged airfields, bringing down the German bombers in large numbers.

  We’re killing more of them than they are of ours, reflected Coburg. That was what war was about: who had the most left when the smoke cleared. The question was: how long could those boys keep going up, five or six times a day, each time flying in the face of death from the Luftwaffe bullets, knowing every time they went up that many of them would not be returning, and hoping it would not be them?

  He was jolted away from the air battle by Lampson asking: ‘What do you reckon’s going on, guv? Williams and Thackeray killed, now Big Mel’s pub torched. Gang warfare?’

  ‘But why?’ asked Coburg. ‘The only gang big enough to rival Big Mel are the Bell brothers, north of the river. But why would they want to muscle in on Mel’s territory?’

  ‘Money.’

  ‘Yes, but at what cost? Mel and the Bell brothers have got both sides of the river carved out nicely and that suits both of them. Why upset that?’ He frowned. ‘The puzzling thing is that Thackeray was killed the day before Williams. Why? Did Williams know Thackeray was dead when he went to the Ritz? Tell you what, Ted, you keep the car and go in search of this girlfriend of Thackeray’s, Vera.’

  Lampson nodded. ‘They said she should be in today. What about you, guv? What are your plans?’

  ‘I’m going to concentrate on the two killings at the Ritz. There’s a new figure entered the picture I want to check on.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes. An American record producer called Raymond Harris.’

  ‘Record producer?’ said Lampson. ‘Anything connected with your friend, the singer?’

  ‘She was the one who put me on to him. It seems he’s very interested in how we’re getting on with our investigation into the murders, and I’m curious to find out why.’

  ‘Sounds like a chat-up line to me, guv.’

  ‘Yes, that was my first thought, but Rosa has got a nose for this kind of thing. So, I thought I’d check him out.’

  ‘Sure you don’t want the car?’

  Coburg shook his head. ‘No, I can walk where I want to go. It’s not far.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘The Foreign Office. They have details of all aliens, and I’m hoping that includes visiting record executives from America.’

  Sir Vincent Blessington was in his office and available when Coburg arrived at the Foreign Office.

  He smiled in greeting. ‘Detective Chief Inspector, a pleasure to see you again. Have there been any developments in the case?’

  ‘Some, but nothing points to a definite answer as to who may have been responsible. The reason I’m here today is to ask if you know anything about a Raymond Harris? He’s American, and I believe he’s a record executive with Swan Records of New York.’

  Blessington regarded Coburg warily. ‘Is there any reason why we should know anything about him?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, he seems very interested in what happened at the Ritz.’

  ‘I imagine most of the guests at the hotel are interested in that.’

  Coburg nodded. ‘True,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t say he was a guest at the Ritz. He might be staying at any of the good hotels in London.’

  Blessington smiled. ‘Very good, Chief Inspector,’ he said. ‘Hoist with my own petard.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Coburg. ‘You may have been letting me know you’re aware of him, in a subtle way.’

  Blessington hesitated, then smiled again. ‘Yes, there is that possibility.’

  ‘So, you are aware of him?’

  ‘He’s a foreign national,’ said B
lessington. ‘The Foreign Office likes to keep tabs on foreign nationals.’

  ‘Considering there are quite a few thousand foreign nationals in the country at any one time, it’s interesting you recall his name so easily.’

  ‘Recent arrivals are always easier to bring to mind,’ said Blessington blandly.

  ‘What can you tell me about him?’ asked Coburg. ‘In as much as it bears on the investigation.’

  Blessington looked thoughtful, obviously considering how much to tell the chief inspector. Finally, he asked: ‘How much do you know about the Americans’ attitude towards the war?’

  ‘I know they’ve adopted a neutral position,’ said Coburg.

  ‘Yes,’ said Blessington. ‘The groundswell of opinion in America, especially in Washington, is that they don’t want to get involved in another conflict between warring European nations. The last one cost them plenty of lives for something they felt was nothing to do with them. Once things began to look as if the same might happen again in Europe, with the rise of Hitler and the Nazis in Germany, and Mussolini and the fascists in Italy, the Americans passed a series of Neutrality Acts, the most recent last year. This stopped America going to war in support of any side if war should be declared outside of their country.

  ‘It has to be said that these Acts were opposed by President Roosevelt, and Mr Churchill is still hoping that the American president will be able to overturn them and support the Allies’ war effort. But that doesn’t look likely. There is very little appetite among the politicians in Washington to get involved in another European war.

  ‘The situation is compounded because there are elements of the American political scene who appear to actively support Hitler, and it’s only the Neutrality Acts that are preventing them from giving him support in the form of weapons and access to American ports for the German U-boats.’

  ‘But the other side of that coin is that as long as the Neutrality Acts remain in force, President Roosevelt and politicians sympathetic to us also can’t help in any way,’ pointed out Coburg.

  Blessington nodded. ‘That’s right. And that includes official exchanges of information.’

  ‘Between spies,’ said Coburg. ‘Their Intelligence outfits and ours.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Blessington. ‘And, unfortunately, there’s little chance of those sort of communications happening because the American Ambassador to Britain, Joseph Kennedy, is not just anti-British, he’s pro-German, and a supporter of Adolf Hitler.’

  ‘Anti-British?’ Coburg frowned. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Most definitely,’ said Blessington. ‘Which means no communications between British and American Intelligence through the embassy in London. But, because there are those in their government who are desperate to know what’s happening behind the scenes in Europe – because, after all, it will affect America – alternative arrangements have been made.’

  ‘Unofficial spies,’ said Coburg.

  ‘Let’s just say, Americans with valid reasons for being in Britain, such as a record company executive, who sends reports back to his head office in New York or Boston.’

  ‘Which, in turn, is passed on to someone in Washington,’ finished Coburg. ‘So, Raymond Harris is one of the good guys.’

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ said Blessington cautiously.

  ‘How would you assess him, having worked with him?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t work with him,’ said Blessington. ‘That’s not the role of the Foreign Office. I’m just aware of him.’

  ‘In that case, who does work with him?’ asked Coburg.

  ‘I’d have thought you were already aware of that,’ said Blessington.

  Of course, realised Coburg. MI5. Inspector Hibbert.

  ‘One other thing that might be of interest,’ said Blessington. ‘As is the case with many Americans, Raymond Harris is the anglicised version of his name. He changed it from Rajmond Hoxha when he started work in America.’

  ‘Rajmond Hoxha?’ Coburg was puzzled. ‘What nationality is that?’

  ‘Albanian,’ said Blessington.

  Chuck Watson and Lofty Parks entered the saloon bar of the Iron Horse warily, wondering why they had been summoned and what lay in store for them. They knew McGuinness well, and neither liked the grim expression on their boss’s face as he surveyed them. McGuinness put down the newspaper he was reading and gestured for them to join him at his table. They sat, both with concerned expressions on their faces.

  ‘Charley said you wanted to see us, Mr McGuinness,’ said Watson, the shorter of the two.

  ‘Yeh,’ said McGuinness curtly. ‘What did you do to that Stafford woman?’

  ‘Just what you told us. Pick her up and ask her questions.’

  ‘Did you touch her?’

  Both men looked at him horrified.

  ‘No, boss! Nothing at all! The only time we touched her was when we put the blindfold on, when we had to lead her into the factory. That was all! I swear!’

  Parks nodded. ‘That’s true, boss. Honest.’

  ‘You threatened her!’ McGuinness accused them angrily.

  ‘No, boss! We just asked her questions. Then we let her go, like you told us to.’

  ‘She says you threatened her. Terrified her.’

  ‘No! On my mother’s life! All right, she may have been terrified, but that wasn’t because of anything we said or did. We acted like proper coppers.’

  ‘Better than coppers,’ added Parks. ‘We was perfect gentlemen.’

  This time, when Lampson called at the address he’d been given for Vera Wicks, she was in. She looked to be in her early twenties, short and thin, her face’s pasty skin almost hidden by her long, greasy black hair. She opened the door of the room she rented in the boarding house to Lampson and let him in after he’d shown her his warrant card. Her shoulders were slumped, and she seemed to Lampson to have been beaten down by life. Lampson knew what that was like, in Vera Wicks he recognised the same defeated posture of so many similar young women in Somers Town.

  ‘I’m sorry to trouble you, Miss Wicks,’ he said. ‘But we’re looking into the death of Billy Thackeray, and we’ve been told that you were close to him. So, first, my sympathies.’

  She nodded and sighed, gesturing him to sit in the one armchair in the room. Instead, Lampson indicated that it was for her to sit there while he took the wooden kitchen chair. The room was small and poorly furnished with the cheapest possible furniture, all of it mismatched and worn. A single bed, a rickety table, the armchair and the wooden chair, with a gas ring in the hearth of what had once been a fireplace, now boarded up.

  ‘When did you hear about his death?’ asked Lampson.

  ‘Last night,’ she said. ‘When I got back. I’d been visiting my mum in Poplar. My dad and brother are in the army so she needs the company. When I got back there was a message for me to get in touch with Waterloo police station.’

  Sergeant Moss, thought Lampson. A good and caring copper.

  ‘So, I went there, and the duty sergeant told me what had happened.’ Suddenly she began to cry. ‘I warned him!’ she burst out. ‘I worried something like this would happen. I warned him he was getting out of his depth.’

  ‘Warned him about what?’ asked Lampson.

  ‘He said he was going to be rich. Really rich. He was talking about a million quid. He said we could go anywhere.’

  ‘Did he say where the money was coming from?’

  ‘No, but it was something he was cooking up with Joe.’

  ‘Joe Williams?’

  She nodded. ‘Joe got killed, didn’t he? In the Ritz.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When I didn’t hear from Billy and heard about what had happened to Joe, I was worried him disappearing was something to do with it.’

  ‘When did you see Billy last?’

  ‘Monday morning. I stayed at his place on Sunday night and he said he’d see me that night here at my place. But he never turned up. I went to his place Monday evening, but he wasn
’t there. I tried again on Tuesday, but there was still no sign of him.’

  ‘Did you try calling on Joe to see if he knew where he was?’

  She shook her head. ‘I didn’t like Joe. He was dangerous. He was leading Billy the wrong way. I told Billy that, but he just laughed. Said I didn’t know Joe like he did. Said he was clever, and he needed him to get the money they were after.’

  The lockpicks, thought Lampson.

  ‘When did you hear about Joe being killed?’

  ‘Tuesday. I went to this club he dances at to see if he knew where Billy was.’

  ‘El Torero.’

  ‘That’s the one,’ she said. ‘When I heard that Joe had been killed, I got worried. That’s when I decided to go to Poplar.’

  ‘Why?’

  She looked at him, surprised he should ask. ‘Joe dead. Billy disappeared. I didn’t know what was going on, but just in case someone decided to come looking for me to try and find out where Billy was, I didn’t want to be here.’

  ‘But you came back?’

  She lowered her head. ‘I had a row with my mum. She told me to get out. I had nowhere else to go, so I came back. I hoped Billy might be here. But instead …’ Once again, she began to cry.

  ‘Did he give any clue as to what he and Joe were planning? Anything at all?’

  Vera shook her head. ‘No. Just that there was a fortune to be got. A million for each of ’em, he said. Then, when I heard about the money and gold they reckon that king has stashed in his rooms at the Ritz, the same place they found Joe, and they said it was two million, well, it was obvious. I may not be clever, but I can divide two million by two and get the same figure Billy was talking about. So, it was the King’s stash they was after.’ She looked at Lampson, pained and upset. ‘But the copper said Billy was killed on Monday. So why did Joe go to the Ritz that night?’ She looked at Lampson even more intently as she asked: ‘Did Joe kill Billy?’

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Inspector Hibbert had a sour expression as he walked into the reception area of the MI5 section at Wormwood Scrubs from the rooms at the back.