Brothers in Blood (16 page)
‘Mr Snow, how nice.’ He rose from his cluttered desk in his cluttered office and extended a bony arm and smiled, revealing a set of uneven yellow teeth. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘You’ve heard about the murders out at Ravensfield.’
‘Oh, yeah. Terrible. You’re not safe in your own home these days are yer?’
Snow slipped a set of photographs on to Rawlins’ desk. One was of Matt Wilkinson which the SOCOs had found at his house. It showed him in some café raising a glass of wine in a toast to the photographer. The other was a mortuary shot of Dave Johnson.
‘These are two of the victims. Do you recognise them?’
Rawlins averted his gaze. ‘Recognise them. Why the hell should I recognise them? What are you suggestin’?’
‘We have reason to believe they were regular customers of your club. In fact they used it as a pick up station.’
Rawlins grinned, the yellow teeth making another appearance. ‘Now there’s a surprise. Come on, get real, Inspector. I reckon that every club in this fair land is used as a pick up station, especially on a Saturday night. That’s part of their function. In fact I met my missus in a dancing club.’
‘Not in a gay club.’
‘Now don’t start slapping labels on my place. This is a disco, mate. I have no control over the clientele. I run a respectable business. As I’ve told you before, nothing goes on in my place that is against the law. I can’t vouch for what happens outside.’
Snow sighed. ‘I’m not here to discuss the nature of your club or what goes on here. I just want to know about these two men.’
He pushed the photographs along the desk nearer to Rawlins and placed a finger on the one showing Wilkinson.
‘This fellow for instance. His name’s Matt Wilkinson. You must have seen him before. He’s been around on the gay scene for years.’
I should know
.
With some reluctance, Rawlins glanced down at the photograph.
‘Yeah,’ he said at length. ‘I reckon I’ve clocked him the club a few times. A Saturday nighter. On the prowl. Usually with a couple of mates.’
‘This one of them?’ Snow indicated the other photograph.
‘Could be. Not a studio portrait is it? And it’s not exactly bright lights in the club y’know. Sometimes it’s difficult to see people’s faces.’ He gave the photograph a second look. ‘Yeah, I reckon he could have been one of them.’
‘On the prowl?’
‘As I said, that’s the function of these places. A chance to meet new people. Chat ‘em up. Find the love of your life.’
‘Seems that didn’t happen to these two.’
Rawlins shrugged. ‘There’s such a thing as a one night stand. You must have had one of those, Inspector. Red-blooded chap like you.’
Snow ignored the remark and slipped the photographs back in the envelope.
‘Are you sure there’s nothing more you can tell me about Wilkinson and his friend? Both men were brutally murdered hours after leaving your club.’
‘Them’s the key words ain’t they: ‘after leavin’? It had nothing to do with my place. If they’d been to the paper shop a couple of hours before they got the chop, would you be round the newsagent now giving him some hassle? I think not. Look Inspector, I’m sorry about these blokes, but to me they were just punters. Sure I saw them around in the club but I didn’t know them personally and I can’t answer for what they got up or what happened to them after they left my place.’
‘Who was serving behind the bar last Saturday night?’
Rawlins frowned. ‘Oh, you’re not going to bother him are you? He’s just a young kid.’
‘This is murder enquiry, Mr Rawlins. I’d question a babe in arms if I thought it would lead me to the truth. What’s his name?’
‘It’s Sandy. Sandy McAndrew.’
‘And where will I find him?’
Snow found Sandy McAndrew early that evening in his dingy bedsit in dingy bedsitland near to the railway station. He was a small, slightly built youth who looked younger than his twenty two years.
‘This won’t take long will it? I’m due at work in half an hour.’
At the Starlight?’ asked Snow perching precariously on the edge of the unmade bed.
McAndrew shook his head as he pulled a shiny red jacket from the clothes rail. It bore the logo ‘Frankie’s’ on the breast pocket. He pointed to it. ‘No, at Frankie’s,’ he said, ‘the burger place on Firth Street. You know it? I work there three nights a week. I have four jobs in all. I need them in order to keep me in this lap of luxury.’ He threw an arm out to indicate his shabby quarters. ‘I work most days at the Crematorium, ashes to ashes, a stint at Starlight on Friday and Saturday night and help a friend out on his fruit stall at the Monday market. I aim to be a millionaire by the time I’m thirty. Either that or I’ll be dead from exhaustion.’
Snow smiled. He warmed to the lad. At least he was trying with life. ‘I shan’t keep you long,’ he said.
‘Good, because Mr Frankie, Frank Armitage to you and me, is a stickler for timekeeping and I’ve already had a finger wagging off him in the last few days. Don’t want another.’
‘It’s about last Saturday night. You were behind the bar at the Starlight.’
‘Yeah,’ McAndrew said, moving to the mirror over the tiny sink to comb his hair. ‘It’s hell on earth there on Saturdays. The boss really should get a second barman. It gets so busy I hardly have time to wipe my nose or any other part of my anatomy, if you get my drift.’
‘Have you read about the murders that happened at Ravensfield this week? Two men battered to death.’
‘Yeah, well sort of. I didn’t actually read about it but heard a bit on the radio and one of the guys at the crem was talking about “them nasty murders on our doorstep”. Sounds horrendous.’
‘Well, I suspect you served the victims on Saturday night,’
McAndrew froze, his comb poised over his quiff. ‘You’re kidding!’
Snow shook his head and produced the two photographs of Wilkinson and Johnson. ‘These are the two men. Recognise them?’
Gingerly McAndrew took hold of the photographs and scrutinised them. ‘He doesn’t look well, does he,’ he said pointed at the photograph of Johnson. ‘Was it taken on the slab?’
Snow nodded. ‘Do you know them?’
‘Well, yes, I reckon I do recognise them. Especially this chap.’ He held up Wilkinson’s picture.
‘What can you tell me about him? His name is Matt Wilkinson.’
Sandy McAndrew screwed up his face in thought for a few moments. ‘Well, not a lot really. You don’t get much time to chat with the punters, business is so brisk. He was a ginger ale man, I seem to recall. He was pretty regular on a Saturday night. Had a charming way with him, I suppose. He seemed a nice bloke to me. He appeared to score pretty regularly. You know it is a gay club I suppose.’
Snow nodded again.
‘Not that I’m gay. But… well I reckon that’s why Mr Rawlins gave me the job. He didn’t want me flirting with customers from behind the bar, if you know what I mean. Be brisk and use a deep voice.’ He smiled at his own observation.
‘Did you see him score on Saturday night?’ He held up the photograph of Wilkinson.
McAndrew revived the face screwing routine again. ‘There was one chap with him for most of the night, I seem to remember. They did a lot of chatting and buying each other drinks.’
‘What did he look like, this other chap?’
‘Heck, I don’t know. I can’t remember really.’
‘Think. Give it a go.’
McAndrew stared at the ceiling for a few seconds. ‘Tallish. Thinnish. Long nose. Almost aristocratic,’ He said at length. ‘Looked a bit like Peter Sellers without the glasses.’
‘Would you recognise him again?’
‘I think so. Maybe. I’m really not sure. My God, you don’t think he…’
‘It’s a possibility. Anything else you remember about this man or Saturday night in particular.’
‘Not really. Ah… wait a minute… I did see him, this Peter Sellers bloke, talking to another man whenever the Wilkinson bloke went to the bog.’
‘And what did
he
look like?’
‘That I can’t say. It was beyond the lights of the bar. All I can say was it was a white man of a normal build… with glasses. I thought he looked a bit out of place.’
In what way?’
‘I never saw him dancing or talking to anyone – apart from the Peter Sellers guy. It was probably his first time. You get to recognise the behaviour.’
There was nothing more that young Sandy McAndrew could tell Snow. It was just crumbs. But, thought the policeman, gather enough crumbs and you make a loaf.
Snow left the young lad to finish his preparations for his stint at Frankie’s burger bar and drove home. He lived in an Edwardian terraced house situated in a quiet street near Greenhead Park. It was furnished in a very Spartan style, not in any way to be fashionable or chic, but simply because Snow did not acquire possessions. They weren’t important to him. In all manner of ways he travelled light. He had no really close friends, no hobbies or passions to fill up his time away from the job and because of the dangers, no romantic involvements. Sometimes, wryly, he thought of himself as a kind of modern urban monk.
He sipped a can of lager while he waited for the microwave to ping telling him his meal for one was red hot and ready to burn his mouth.
As he ate, he thought about the case and prayed for a swift straightforward conclusion.
‘I know I shouldn’t be talking to you. I know what we agreed. But these are bloody exceptional circumstances. I’ve been putting this call off all day. It’s been doing my head in. I mean we can’t just do nothing. We can’t sit tight and hope the bastard dies.’ Alex’s voice on the phone was almost hysterical.
Russell didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to think. Like Alex his mind had been transformed into mincemeat since he had heard the news about Ronnie Fraser.
It was close to midnight and he was sitting at his desk in the downstairs room which he had converted into an office, a single desk lamp throwing a narrow beam down on to the telephone. Upstairs his wife and unborn child were sleeping soundly. He had been in a quandary all day as to whether he should break the rule and contact the others, but now Alex had beaten him to it.
‘If he wakes up, comes round, he could land us right in the shit.’ Alex’s voice rose an octave.
‘And what do you suggest we do?’ asked Russell softly, lobbing the ball back.
There was a pause. Both men knew what the other was thinking – the options were few – but neither had the courage to voice their thoughts. After a while it was Alex who spoke. ‘Well,’ he said hesitantly, ‘I suppose we’d better get in touch with Laurence. He’ll know what to do.’
As usual it was Russell who contacted Laurence, their bond being the stronger and more intimate than Alex’s.
Initially Laurence was irritated that Russell had broken their rule. He had told them clearly that they should remain incommunicado for twelve months. Of course, he had not reckoned on the way things had turned out. How could he have been so stupid not to check that all three of them were dead? Really dead. However, his initial response to the unpleasant news that one of the men had survived their attack was just to lie low. It would all pass. Surely even if this fellow was able to talk to the police about the event, there was nothing definite that he could say that would link the killings to the Brotherhood. But now Russell’s call had begun to sow seeds of doubt in his mind. Maybe he was fooling himself. The coppers would be looking for a motive and as robbery was not involved it would be suggested to them that the attacks on Wilkinson and cronies had been carried out as some form of revenge. The crime was too vicious and calculated to be random. This line of thinking surely would lead them to seek out Wilkinson’s victims, one of whom was Alex. Once that had been established, the coppers had their link,
the
link to all of them. And although Alex and Russell had been balaclava-ed up on the night, he had not. OK, he had been in disguise but this was simply a camp persona and a long-haired wig. Window-dressing. Certainly not an iron clad protection against identification. Slowly, uncomfortably Laurence also began to get pangs of concern. It was a feeling alien to him and he didn’t like it.
‘Look, allow me a little time to give this some thought and I’ll ring you in the morning. Early before you set off for school. Say around 7.30. And for God’s sake tell Alex to remain cool.’
Russell said he would, knowing that it would be a futile gesture, and replaced the receiver. As he did so, he sensed another presence in the room. He turned sharply and saw Sandra standing in the open doorway.
‘What was that all about?’ she said softly. There was no edge or tone to her voice to indicate to Russell whether this was a vague enquiry or that she had heard most of the conversation.
‘Are you OK, my love? The baby...?’
She shook her head sleepily. ‘Yes, I’m OK. Baby’s fine. Who were you talking to?’
Suddenly Russell felt very weary. It was all going wrong. Things were spiralling out of control. He was starting to build lie upon lie. What had been his pleasant dark secret now seemed a ridiculous and dangerous burden. It should never have brought them this close to discovery. For a fleeting moment he wished it were all over. Everything. He just wanted to rest in the dark and never be troubled again.
His brain worked sluggishly as Sandra stood waiting for his response. ‘It’s… it’s an old school friend. He’s got some health issues. Cancer.’ He paused, gathering up further strands of the lie. ‘He’s not got much time left and he’s been getting touch with people he knew. A final chat… you know.’
Lame as a three-legged dog, thought Russell, bringing to mind one of Laurence’s pithy expressions.
‘At this time of night?’
‘He can’t sleep, poor devil. He’s not thinking straight.’
In the dim light he couldn’t tell whether Sandra believed him or not.
He rose swiftly, crossed to her and placed his arm around her shoulder. ‘Come on love, let’s go back to bed. We’ve work in the morning.’ After a moment she responded and moulded herself into him. ‘Thank God
we’ve
got our health and sanity,’ he murmured, leading her back to their bedroom. A tag line he hoped would to add a touch of credibility to his lie.