Charlie (63 page)

Although his expression showed neither surprise, pleasure nor wariness, she was encouraged. His remark suggested he’d known her father for a very long time. ‘Can I come in?’ she asked. ‘I promise I haven’t come to make trouble, just to talk to you.’

He hesitated for a moment, then nodded and opened the door wider. ‘You’ll have to excuse the state of the place,’ he said. ‘I don’t get many visitors.’

As he led her into the living room Charlie saw that he had been living alone for some time. The room was dusty and tired-looking. All the furniture – a large three-piece suite, a dining table with matching chairs around it – looked expensive, but worn. An artificial flower arrangement on the table was faded almost white by sunlight, perhaps put there many years ago by a woman in his life.

Photographs of children had still more smaller ones tucked into the frames, a well-loved teddy bear sat on the television like a reminder of happier times. The large Westminster clock on the mantelpiece had stopped at ten past two. The room was tidy, no cups, plates or full ashtrays lying around, yet there was evidence of Dave Kent’s ill-health, many bottles of pills and medicine on the coffee table and a faint smell of sickness in the over-warm room.

‘How did you find me?’ he asked, and sat down heavily, then apologized for his rudeness and said he couldn’t stand for long.

‘I persuaded a friend in the police force to give me your address,’ she said, gingerly sitting down opposite him. ‘I know I shouldn’t really be here. But I had to see you. I need to know about my father.’

He looked puzzled, even confused. Charlie had no way of knowing if he knew anything at all about her, so she quickly ran through the important points of her story.

’So you see I know
now
that he was killed and by whom, the police told me that. But that isn’t enough for me, Mr Kent. In the two years since Dad disappeared I’ve pondered and thought about him all the time. I’ve been angry with him and felt betrayed because I loved him and couldn’t understand why he ran out on us.

‘Now they’ve found his body, thanks to you coming forward, I just want to know why, and how it happened. I know the police could probably tell me most of it eventually. But they are strangers, aren’t they? They didn’t know
him
, and they weren’t there.’

He looked at her silently for what seemed ages.

‘Please,’ she begged. ‘I could cope with his funeral so much better if I knew exactly what happened. I promise you I won’t tell anyone.’

He sighed deeply, and ran his hand over his bald head. ‘Okay, love,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a right to know, but you’ll have to excuse me if I seem a bit slow. It’s the medicine I’m taking.’ He paused as if trying to think where to start. ‘I did know your dad well. We weren’t mates exactly, but we liked and respected each other. Jin was never a rogue, not like I was, but he was a dark horse, not a man you’d take for a ride, you know what I mean?’

Charlie nodded. If the man had claimed they were real friends she wouldn’t have believed him. Jin had never been the chummy sort, not with anyone. ‘So when did you meet?’

‘Must have been sixteen years since,’ he said thoughtfully. ’I went in his club a few times and we got chatting about Hong Kong. See, I’d been there for two years when I was in the navy. Anyway, I got in a bit of bother up in the West End one night, there was a crowd of us blokes, all tanked up, someone got knifed and the filth nicked me for it and banged me up. Next thing I know, they say I can go. Seems Jin had seen what had happened, knew they’d got the wrong man and he come down to the nick and said so. Well, I owed him one then, didn’t I? I fully expected him to call in his card before long, that’s the way most of those blokes work it. But he never did.

‘A couple of years passed. I went up to his club one night and found he’d gone, packed up and left the place to Miss Dexter. I asked around, heard a few tales about her blackmailing him and the like, and because I knew all the Dexters from way back, and knew what they were, I kind of wanted to help him, know what I mean?’

Charlie was already warming to this odd-looking man. On closer inspection she’d become aware that once he must have been quite a giant, but his illness was slowly eating away at him. She could see folds of loose skin on his neck and hands. It saddened her.

‘Well, to cut a long story short,’ he went on. ‘I asked around and heard Jin had gone into the import business with foreign goods. I got a whisper he used a shipping company down in Tilbury and I left a message for him there to say I might be able to help him out sometimes. We got together. I had a couple of trucks in them days and an old warehouse down at Wapping. We started to do business. He bought the stuff out East, got it shipped back here, then I stored it for him and delivered it to his buyers.

‘Everything was hunky-dory then. Jin was pleased because he could concentrate on the buying and selling. I was more than happy to do the donkey work because it was regular and clean. The shipments were getting bigger and bigger, and we were both making a lot of money. But unknown to me, and maybe yer dad too, at that time, the f-ing Dexters were out to get him.’

‘Did you know that Dad had an affair with Daphne Dexter, Mr Kent?’ Charlie interrupted.

‘The name’s Dave, love,’ he said. ‘Yeah, I knew about the affair, leastways I heard it on the grapevine. But I didn’t really believe it until he told me himself some years later. It must have been early in ’65, because I remember we were hanging around waiting for a delayed shipment of stuff from Hong Kong and it was brass-monkey weather. Jin had booked into a flash hotel because you and yer mum were coming up to London to join him. He’d bought tickets for a pantomime and all sorts. See, he weren’t one for staying in posh places, not on his own. Usually he got a room in a local guest-house. Anyway, he come in this particular morning with a face on him. I asked what was wrong, as you do, and he said he’d had a bit of bother the night before.’

‘I think I remember that night,’ Charlie interrupted again, remembering how her father had rushed out of the hotel leaving her mother crying. ‘He had a phone call from someone. I’ve worked out since it must have been Daphne.’

Dave looked at her sharply, perhaps surprised she’d dug that deeply. ‘Your dad never talked about himself, or his problems, he were a very private man, but he was really rattled that day, and I guess he had to confide in someone. He said Daphne had insisted on seeing him, otherwise she was going to cause a scene in front of you and yer mum. We had a bit of a heart-to-heart. He told me how it all came about.’

‘Tell me what he said, Mr Kent.’ Charlie was on the edge of her seat now. She felt she was finally going to get the truth.

‘He said it was the thing he most regretted in his life. How it came about was that he’d left Daphne to run his club a great deal after you were born. Partly because he wanted to be with you and yer mum, but also because yer mum weren’t too well. Daphne increased his profits quite a bit and he was grateful. Anyway, he took her out one night for dinner as a kind of thank-you, and one thing led to another.’ He broke off, Charlie could see he was embarrassed.

‘I can understand that,’ Charlie said, wishing to put him at ease again. ‘She’s still a good-looking woman, she must have been gorgeous when she was younger.’

Dave half smiled in agreement. ‘She put me in mind of Elizabeth Taylor, just one look at her was enough to make any man lust after her. But for all her beauty, you could sense she was an evil bitch. I’d met her first when she was about sixteen, she were as hard as nails even then, ready to do anything to make a few bob. One of her tricks was to lure men into back alleys where her brothers were waiting to rob them. That’s why it was so surprising she was capable of falling in love.’

‘She loved Dad?’ Charlie gasped.

Dave gave a rueful weak grin. ‘Yeah, she did. Mind you, from what yer dad said, Daphne’s idea of love weren’t quite like other people’s. Once she got her claws into poor Jin she weren’t going to let him go, she wanted to possess and control him, for him to leave Sylvia and marry her.’

‘Did he love her?’ Charlie asked. ‘Don’t give me any bullshit, Dave. I need to know the whole truth.’

Dave shook his head. ‘No, he never did, not even briefly from what he told me. He might have liked her, admired her strength and stuff, but he was sucked into a situation he couldn’t get out of. As I see it, he soon found out how dangerous and jealous the woman was, her brothers were loonies. She had only to snap her fingers and they’d be off to hurt Sylvia, burn Jin’s club down, or anything. So he just tried to keep the peace.’

Charlie sighed in understanding. She’d already seen plenty of evidence of what the woman was capable of when she was crossed.

‘So in the end, Jin did a deal with her. He gave her the Lotus Club. It were a right little gold-mine, and on the strength of that she borrowed enough money to buy the other two clubs off him too. He went off to Devon. He thought that would be the end of it.’

‘But it wasn’t?’ Charlie said.

Dave shook his big bald head. ‘No, it weren’t. He had a few years of peace, got his show on the road, and forgot her. But she must’ve been keeping tabs on him all along, and I suppose when she got the wire he was making big money again, she decided that by fair means or foul she was going to get him back in her clutches. That night you remember was the time she surfaced again. She blackmailed him into meeting her by saying she was going to spill the beans to Sylvia.’

‘Poor Dad,’ Charlie sighed. ‘Why didn’t he just tell Mum outright? Mum had always known anyway.’

‘Your dad was no coward, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ Dave said quickly. ‘If he handled things badly that night it was only to spare Sylvia and you public humiliation. When he went out to meet Daphne later it was purely to keep her well away from the hotel, and to tell her to get lost, once and for all. And that’s exactly what he did. But Daphne ain’t human, she had not only made up her mind that Jin would leave Sylvia and marry her, but she had big plans to run drugs through his import business. He was furious with her about the drugs, and warned her that if she found some other patsy to do it with, he’d grass her up. Jin despised anyone who dealt in drugs more than anything. He’d seen what opium does to people back in China.’

‘But he always seemed quite cool about drugs to me,’ Charlie said. She didn’t want this man to make out her dad was a saint just for her benefit.

‘He was a cool man in every respect,’ Dave said sternly. ‘I expect he took that line with you because he knew kids are always more curious about something when their folks come down hard about it. But take it from me, love, your dad would never get involved with drugs. Not even if there was millions in it.’

Charlie smiled. She was so glad she’d come now. She suggested she made them both some tea and Dave smiled back at her with real warmth.

‘You’re a lovely girl,’ he said. ‘Your dad always said you were. Only time I ever heard him boast was about you. He’d be right proud of you now.’

The cleanliness in Dave’s tiny kitchen left a lot to be desired. While Charlie waited for the kettle to boil she washed up a few plates and wiped over the surfaces. She wondered what was the matter with him, and if he ever had any help from anyone.

Dave heard the noises coming from the kitchen and guessed what she was doing. It touched him more than anything had in a long time, and all at once he knew for certain he’d done the right thing in grassing up the Dexters, even if it was against everything he’d been brought up to believe in.

He looked around his living room and saw what little he had for a lifetime of ducking and diving. Even during his time in the navy he’d been a thief and a con-man. When he came out he’d progressed to burglary, extortion, ringing motors and just about any crime that didn’t involve violence. Sometimes he thought now that was his only saving grace, at least he could go to his death knowing he’d never intentionally hurt anyone.

It had been Jin who straightened him out and showed him a way to make an honest living. Those years they’d done business together had been some of the happiest times he’d known. Ten quid earned straight was better than a bent hundred, he found. He could remember golden days down in the warehouse at Wapping, sitting with a bottle of beer and his sandwiches looking at the sun on the river, content in knowing that even if the police were to storm in and check the contents of the hundreds of packing cases, they’d find nothing but exotic artefacts, all bought legitimately and paid for.

Jin taught him to appreciate the beauty of Chinese lacquerwork, jade and the patience and artistry those Oriental rugs had been woven with. Dave didn’t even mind that those items would end up in the kind of snooty people’s houses he’d once envied and earmarked to rob. Or that for the first time in his life he had to work hard for twelve hours a day. He had peace of mind and self-respect.

Dave winced with the pain in his stomach, the cancer was eating away at him, but it was too early yet for his next dose of medicine. Besides, it made him too woozy and he had a great deal more yet to tell the girl.

Charlie came back from the kitchen with two mugs of tea. She could see Dave was in pain and she asked if she could get him anything.

‘No, love,’ he said. ‘I’m fine. We’d better get back to business.’

‘Can I just ask what Daphne had over you that you couldn’t speak out before?’ she asked.

‘My daughter, love,’ he said with a deep sigh. ‘See, me wife left me, years ago. I brought Wendy up on me own since she was five. The apple of me eye as they say. She’d got a little one too, got herself in trouble when she was sixteen. My grandson Grant is seven now, and they’re both safely in Australia with Wendy’s new husband. But back at the time Jin was killed, they were still living here with me. Daphne put me straight. One word from me and Wendy would cop it. What could I do? I knew she’d get someone to do it, even if she was in a prison cell herself. I couldn’t take the risk, not with my own kid.’

‘I think the Dexter twins must have threatened my mother with something like that too, because she wouldn’t tell the police anything after they crushed her knees,’ Charlie said.