The Tango School Mystery Page 9

  "This is a great shot," I said.

  Freddie preened himself a bit. And why not?

  "Figgis plans to run it on the front page," he said.

  "And to think Blunt wanted to grab your camera to stop you taking his picture," I said.

  Freddie scratched his head. "I'm not so sure about that now. I think he may have wanted to stop us seeing these pictures. I've just finished printing them."

  He laid three black and white eight-by-six prints on my desk. They were still damp from the fixer and rinsing solutions. The effect was a bit like looking at pictures through a shower of rain.

  I leaned closer. "These are the snaps of the rear of Maundsley's Bentley disappearing around the corner," I said.

  I had to admire Freddie's work. He'd had seconds to yank the camera out from under his shirt, focus it on the Bentley and snap the shutter. He'd taken three shots in quick succession. There couldn't have been a time lapse of more than five seconds between the first and the last.

  The pictures reminded me of the sort of film noir images you used to get in movies like The Third Man. They showed a street dappled with pools of light and dark shadows. Solitary figures lingered on the edge of the shadows. Beams from a single street lamp fell on the rear of the Bentley.

  I could see Maundsley in the back seat. His head was twisted round and he was glaring through the car's rear window. His upper lip was curled in a snarl. His nose cast a shadow on the left side of his face. But his right eye radiated hatred.

  In the second picture, Maundsley had moved. I could see his whole face. And his eyes showed surprise, perhaps at the flashlight from Freddie's camera. He'd lifted his arms across the back shelf of the Bentley. He seemed to be lurching to his left.

  The third picture showed why. Maundsley was reaching for a box perched on the shelf behind the Bentley's rear seat. He was making a grab for the box. His left hand was stretched out trying to obscure it.

  I turned to Freddie. "Is there any way you can blow this picture up more so we can see what that box is?"

  Freddie whipped a magnifying glass out of his pocket. "I anticipate your every need," he said.

  I took the magnifying glass and focused it over the box.

  "It's a hat box," I said. "A lady's hat box. And there's some writing on the side which reads…" I peered closer. "…Pascale Dubois. Chapeaux de Dames. Faubourg Saint-Honoré."

  "This is strange," I said. "I've seen pictures of Maundsley wearing a homburg but no way is that a chapeau de dame."

  "Perhaps it's his wife's hat box," Freddie said.

  "She divorced him. When you lose a wife, you lose her hat box and her love - and not necessarily in that order. Maundsley is not the sentimental type to hang onto mementoes. I'd guess there's a new woman in his life."

  "Could be that Unity Box-Hartley," Freddie said.

  "She certainly seems keen enough. But when the riot started she didn't rush to his side. That would have been the giveaway that they were having an affair."

  "Interesting piece for the gossip column," Freddie said.

  I leaned back in my old captain's chair. "If you're right about Blunt wanting the camera to destroy these photos there could be more to it than that."

  "But what?" Freddie asked.

  "I don't know," I said. "But you know what the French say when a man gets into a fight?"

  Freddie shook his head.

  "Cherchez la femme."

  "How do you manage to eat all that for lunch and still keep a model's figure?" I asked.

  Shirley hoisted a forkful of shepherd's pie to her mouth and said: "I think beautiful thoughts while I'm chewing." She stuffed the pie in her mouth and munched away.

  We were in the Happy Tripper restaurant, a meat-and-two veg joint on Brighton seafront where Shirley had worked as a waitress before she'd got into modelling.

  She'd taken a break from her current assignment on the West Pier. A magazine fashion shoot for groovy disco wear. Shirl was wearing baggy trousers in a red and black harlequin pattern tucked into the top of snakeskin boots. She had a halter top which looked as though it had been made out of a pocket handkerchief. She'd turned a few heads when we'd walked into the restaurant.

  I said: "I hope the beautiful thoughts don't include those trousers."

  Shirley forked up a lorry driver's sized portion of pie and said: "These daks make some of the gear I modelled this morning look like a widow's weeds."

  I ate some of my sausage and mash while Shirl chomped away.

  I said: "Do you ever get to model hats?"

  Shirl opened her arms in a look-at-me gesture. "Do you think a girl wearing this clobber to the disco is going to worry about head-gear?"

  "It's just that I've been thinking about a hat."

  "You'd look weird in a bowler or a trilby."

  "I was thinking of a woman's hat."

  "You'd look even more of a drongo than usual in a straw number with feathers and flowers."

  I put down my knife and fork and pushed away the remains of the sausage and mash.

  "I just wondered whether you'd ever heard of a Paris hat shop called Pascale Dubois. It’s in the Faubourg Saint-Honoré."

  "Sounds like the kind of place for snooty Sheilas who walk around like they've got a bad smell under their nose."

  "That's what I thought."

  "What's your interest?" Shirley asked. She scooped up the last of her shepherd's pie.

  I told her about the rumpus with Blunt and how Freddie had snapped pictures of the hat box in Maundsley's car.

  Shirley put down her knife and fork. "Haven't you got enough on your plate finding this Gervase Pope bludger without worrying about a hat box?"

  I shrugged. "You're probably right. But I've no idea where Gervase is hiding out. And Maundsley is supposed to be his target. So I figure the more I can find out about Maundsley, the more chance I might discover a link to Gervase."

  "And blagging an extra headline about Maundsley's mystery woman couldn't be further from your mind."

  I grinned. "No fooling you, is there?"

  "Most don't even try," Shirley said.

  "So you can't help about the hat box?"

  Shirley leaned across the table and kissed me lightly on the lips. "I didn't say that. As it happens there's a lighting guy in the crew for this fashion shoot. He was telling me he's done some work in Paris. I'll quiz him this afternoon and see if he's heard of it."

  Shirl flicked her gaze to a tiny wristwatch. "Jeez, I'm late for the afternoon shoot. Guess I'll have to blow and leave you with the tab."

  "My lot in life," I said.

  But Shirl had already disappeared.

  I watched as the red and black harlequin trousers hurried along the promenade towards the pier.

  One thing you learn on newspapers is that there's nothing like a photograph to stir people's memories.

  You can run a thousand words of perfect prose and won't have a flicker of a reaction. But print a photo, and it churns up all kinds of hidden secrets.

  So I wasn't surprised to receive a call within five minutes of arriving back in the newsroom. The midday edition of the paper was on my desk. It had the picture of Blunt on the ground in New Road. It ran across six columns above the fold under the headline: DOWN AND OUT.

  I was admiring the page as my phone rang.

  I lifted the receiver and Sonya, the receptionist in the front office, said: "There's a man here to see you."

  "Who is it?"

  "He won't give a name."

  "Did he say what it's about?"

  "No, but he's got today's paper. He's sitting over by the potted palm, looking at the picture on the front page and laughing."

  I thought about that for a moment. Quite a few newspaper informants like to play the man-of-mystery act. Especially if they're after tip-off money.

  I said: "Park him in the interview room and I'll be down in a couple of minutes."

  I took another look at the front page, grabbed my notebook, and headed downsta
irs to the interview room.

  Mystery man was lounging on a chair, with his right foot up on his left knee. His gaze was locked on the front page of the Chronicle. He held it in both hands in front of him. The paper rustled in his grip as he chuckled at the picture.

  He looked up as I stepped through the door. A weasely face was topped with a thatch of brown hair that had started to grey round the ears. There were dark smudges under his eyes and a small scar at the right side of his mouth. The lobe of his left ear was missing. He looked about fifty, but he was the kind of person who'd probably looked fifty for years.

  He waved the paper at me and said: "Last time I saw old Blunty on the floor was VE night in Hamburg. He was throwing up in a latrine, the only useful thing he'd done that day. That taught him the perils of hooky vodka. He'd blagged it from a Polish infantry sergeant. The Pole had distilled it from boot polish. Blunty drank a whole bottle of the poison."

  I said: "But not you?"

  "Stick to stout. That's my motto. Not that you could get a decent bottle of it in Hamburg in forty-five."

  I took a seat on the other side of the table.

  I said: "I'm Colin Crampton."

  Mystery Man put the paper down and said: "Terry Jones."

  I said: "I take it you're not a fan of Captain Wellington Blunt."

  "Wellington? That's a laugh, for a start. His real name is Wilberforce. He changed it when he joined the army. Reckoned the old general's moniker would give him a leg up in the promotion stakes. I guess he may have had a point. At least he ended up a captain. I never made it past corporal - and that was only for a few weeks. I got busted down to private again. By that bastard Blunt."

  I flipped open my notebook. "Care to tell me about it?"

  Jones narrowed his eyes. "What's in it for me?"

  "A cup of tea."

  "Anything else?"

  "A digestive biscuit."

  Jones slumped back in his chair. The corners of his mouth turned down.

  "I hoped you might spring a couple of bob. Just for a bottle of stout or two."

  "Tell me the tale, and we'll see."

  Jones shrugged. Sat up straighter. "Hamburg in May 1945 was a bleeding mess. You ain't seen anything like it. I certainly hadn't. It was like walking through a demolition site. No electricity. No mains water in much of the city. No plumbing, half the sewers didn't work. No wonder Blunty was treated as some kind of saviour by the locals."

  "How come?"

  "He likes to portray himself as a bold warrior. That's a laugh. He commanded a mobile latrine unit. Bogbrush Blunt he was known as in the officers' mess. He hated the name."

  "But a hero to the locals with no water and no sewers," I said.

  Jones nodded. "Yeah. And didn't he just milk it. Made a small fortune on the black market."

  "With a mobile latrine unit?" I said.

  "You weren't there. Tell me this: what was the most marketable commodity in Hamburg's black market?"

  "Bread," I said.

  "No."

  "Coffee."

  "No."

  "Soap."

  "Closer but not right. It's bog paper. Toilet tissue if you want to be posh about it. Not that it was tissue in those days. After a big one, your bum felt like it had been rubbed down with sandpaper. Not that that bothered the locals. They couldn't get enough of the stuff."

  "Are you saying Blunt sold army supplied toilet paper on the black market?"

  "Tons of it. But too much. He could fool the brass most of the time. They had more important things to worry about than how much bog paper the mobile latrine unit was using. But Blunty didn't know when to stop. He over-reached himself."

  "And was caught?"

  Jones shook his head. His eyes flashed angrily. "Not Blunt. He knew how to cover his back. There were two of us who used to make the deliveries. Me and Smudger Burnley. We walked into a trap. The red-caps were waiting for us. Someone sold us out. Never found out who."

  "But Blunt walked away?"

  "Blunty visited Smudger and me in the glasshouse. Said he'd act as our officer advocate at the court martial. He told me that if I put my hand up and kept him out of it, he'd see me all right. I didn't see I had much choice. I was nailed whether Bogbrush was involved or not. Blunty made the same offer to Smudger. But Smudger didn't see it that way. He reckoned that if he was going down, Bogbrush would come with him. He told Blunt to his face that he'd denounce him before the court martial."

  "So Blunt was cashiered, too?" I asked.

  "No such luck. The night before the hearing Smudger was found dead in his cell."

  I leaned forward. "Not from natural causes?"

  "No. His throat had been slashed with a knife."

  I rocked back on my chair so hard I nearly fell off.

  I wobbled back to the upright. Straightened my tie. Tried to look as though I was taking it all in my stride.

  With a mouth as dry as a sack of cement, I asked: "And you believe that Smudger was killed by Blunt?"

  Jones smirked: "Who else? But it was never proved."

  "Why not?"

  "The turnkey - a redcap - guarding the cells that night went AWOL."

  "He disappeared?"

  "Never seen again. It was happening a lot after the war finished. Blokes who'd stepped up to the plate when the fighting was on, didn't see why they couldn't slope off now it had finished. Besides, in forty-five those German fräuleins would put it out for a box of matches, let alone a packet of fags."

  I made a note in shaky Pitman's. "You're saying the redcap ran off with a German girl?"

  "Helped on his way with a generous donation from Blunt's bog roll slush fund," Jones said.

  "So there was no record of who visited the cell during the night," I said.

  "And naturally Blunt had arranged for alibis to say he'd not been near the place."

  "But you believe he'd killed Smudger?"

  "Who else could have done it? Blunt was more than a ducker and diver. He had a nasty streak as wide as the North Sea - and just as murky. He killed Smudger, all right."

  And, I thought, could have killed Derek Clapham in the same way. Except there was no motive for the killing. In theory, Blunt and Clapham were fascist comrades in arms.

  I looked at Jones. He had the satisfied air of a man who's said his piece after a long time waiting.

  "Why contact the Chronicle years after all this happened?" I asked.

  "I served my time in the glasshouse, then came out into civvy street hoping I'd make a go of my life. But that time in the can has followed me everywhere. I've had jobs, but it's been tough to find them and keep them. Meanwhile, Blunty used his ill-gotten to start up a security business. Security - with Blunt that's a sick joke. When I saw him on the ground in that picture it gave me a real lift."

  Jones stood up. Stepped towards the door.

  I said: "You haven't had your tea and biscuit. Or a couple of bob for a bottle of stout."

  He grinned: "Not what I really wanted, after all," he said. "I've left you with what I came for. It's made me feel good. Think I'll treat myself to a fish tea."

  I hadn't expected one shock about Blunt - let alone two.

  The second came after I arrived back at my lodgings that evening.

  I crept silently into the hall. I hoped to sneak upstairs and avoid the Widow.

  But she had ears like Jodrell Bank antennae. She shot out of her parlour waving the Night Final edition of the Chronicle. The Blunt picture was still on the front page.

  She said: "I didn't expect to see this man on his back."

  "Is that because you normally see him on his front, Mrs Gribble?"

  The Widow frowned. "Don't be disgusting. It so happens I've seen him three times at my tango class in the past couple of weeks. I thought he was the kind of gentleman I wouldn't mind trying a backward ocho with."

  I didn't ask.

  But I did wonder what Blunt was doing at the Dolores Esteban Tango Academy. He didn't strike me as a man who'd be a natur
al at tripping the light fantastic.

  So I did ask: "Was the fat old basket pictured lying in the road a dance pupil?"

  The Widow sniffed. "I'll ignore the offensiveness in your question. But, no, he wasn't taking lessons. On each of his visits, he had private business with Conrad Montez, my occasional dance partner. When he called, Conrad had to leave me to speak to this gentleman in the green room. On the third occasion I was annoyed because I missed doing the Kiss of Fire with Conrad."

  "It would probably have gone out," I said.

  The Widow stamped her foot, stormed back into her parlour, and slammed the door.

  It left me standing on the bottom stair wondering what the hell Captain Wellington Blunt from the bog brush battalion was doing at a tango class.

  Chapter 12

  I was still wondering about it when I arrived at my desk the following morning.

  There were certainly plenty of questions about Blunt. And I didn't have an answer to any of them.

  Had Blunt murdered Smudger to protect himself, as Terry Jones had said? Blunt certainly had a motive to kill Smudger. But, then, Jones had a motive to discredit Blunt. Whose tale should I believe? As a reporter, I was used to sneaky types that tried to use newspapers to settle old scores.

  But if Blunt did murder Smudger, could he have also killed Derek Clapham? The night I'd entered Clapham's flat I was certain I'd seen his killer from the kitchen window. He'd fled down the darkened alley at the back of the flat. I conjured up the image in my mind. The sturdy figure had moved at a steady pace. Yes, it could have been Blunt. But, equally, it could have been a thousand other heavy-set men in Brighton.

  And, anyway, what reason would Blunt have for killing Clapham? On the face of it, Gervase Pope had a stronger motive than Blunt. After all, Clapham had been the instrument that had resulted in Gervase being interned.

  Finally, the Widow's news that Blunt met Conrad Montez at the Dolores Esteban Tango Academy added an exotic touch to the mystery. Blunt's visit could have been a social call. But, from the Widow's account, it didn't sound like it. And Blunt, as I'd discovered in New Road, was an old bruiser and not light on his feet.

  I was mulling all this over when my telephone rang.