When the Music's Over (33 page)

“Was this recently?”

“No, not for a while now.”

“What was she like?”

“Mimsy? Probably not much different from most girls her age, though I can't say I have much experience to go on. I don't have any siblings. I suppose she spent most of her time thinking about makeup and dreaming about pop stars and the like. But she was always pleasant enough when I saw her. She seemed bright. More so than Albert, I'd say.”

“In what way?”

“She was quick to grasp your meaning, even when you were being ironic. She was naive though, I think, in some ways. Not very well read. But talented. A good sketch artist. At least to my untutored eye.”

“Would you say she was easily manipulated?”

“I wouldn't know. I never saw anyone try to manipulate her. I imagine she would be keen to please. She lacked confidence and made it up by being a bit mouthy, but I got the feeling that she'd been let down a lot in her life and she wanted to make a good impression.”

“Albert said she didn't suffer fools gladly.”

“I doubt she did. I can't say I saw any evidence of it, but if she felt slighted or put down she could certainly let you have a mouthful.”

“Did Albert tell you about Mimosa hanging out with a Pakistani bloke down on the Strip?”

“What? No. Why would he tell me something like that? Even if it was true. Was this recently?”

“Maybe he thought you'd help him do something about it? You wouldn't approve, would you? Didn't you say you agreed with him about immigrants?”

“Not exactly. And my approval doesn't come into it. I don't approve of mixed marriages, as a matter of fact, but they were hardly about to get married, were they?”

“Who?”

“Mimsy and this person you're talking about.”

“Have you heard of grooming?”

“Yes, of course. It's hard not to these days, isn't it?”

“Would it surprise you to hear that we think it might have been
going on along the Strip, and that Mimosa, and perhaps even some of her friends, had been groomed?”

“Good god, that's awful. And the police haven't done anything?”

“We've only just found about it,” Annie said, feeling as if she were apologizing. “We're not even certain we're right yet.”

“It's an appalling thought. I had absolutely no idea that anything like that could have been going on. I suppose it wasn't something I thought could happen here, not practically on my own doorstep. I saw the news about Rochdale and all the rest, of course. But they seemed so far away from Wytherton in so many ways.”

“Unfortunately not,” said Annie. She glanced at Gerry, who put away her notebook, and they got up to leave. “I think that's all for now,” Annie said, holding her hand out to shake. “Thanks for your time, Paul.”

Warner shook. “Of course. If there's anything else . . .”

“Naturally. We'll be in touch.”

When they got outside, Gerry noted down the license plate number of the white Citroën Nemo. paul warner, painting and decorating was written on the side above a phone number, which Gerry also copied down. “He's certainly an odd one, isn't he?” she said.

“Indeed he is,” said Annie. “A real fish out of water. But I think he's given Albert Moffat a convincing alibi.”

“
ANY PARTICULAR
reason you remember the Tony Monaghan murder?” Banks asked.

“It was my first body, for a start, and a nasty one at that.” Bradley screwed up his face with the effort of memory. “I won't forget it in a hurry. The smelly toilets, being cooped up in that tiny space with the body and all. It made me gag. Hard to believe it's an Indian restaurant now. It was still early days for me, remember, and it took me a good few times before I could approach a murder scene with a settled stomach. A queer murder. They were usually easy enough to solve, too, but we got nowhere with that one. Not that we didn't work hard at it, whatever you might think. At least at first.”

“I don't think anything. Tell me about it.”

Bradley looked up at the clouds, as if for inspiration, then said, “We got a call to the public conveniences in Hyde Park. Very public and very convenient, if you know what I mean. The new act may have made homosexuality legal, but you still got a lot of rent boys and the like trawling for trade in these sort of places.” He glanced at Winsome. “Don't get me wrong. I'm not homophobic, any more than I'm racist. I was all for making it legal, but some of the creatures that crept out of the gutter, or from under stones, were enough to make your skin crawl.”

“This victim wasn't a rent boy,” said Banks.

“No. He wasn't. Not in this case. He was in his late twenties, as far as we could tell, nicely dressed, wearing a wedding ring. Stabbed, as you say. Eight or nine times, as I remember. We thought maybe he was a prospective customer who'd tried it on with the wrong person. I mean, some people did just go there for a piss, you know, if they didn't know any better. And he was a stranger to the area, up from London, so I remember.”

“Was robbery a motive?”

“We certainly considered it. Pockets emptied. Maybe even a drug deal gone wrong. There was plenty of that around, too.”

“So you couldn't identify him at first?”

“No. Only later, when we asked around. He had a card from a hotel in his top pocket—something the killer must have missed. That led us to the Queen's Hotel in City Square, and then to his room. We found out he was from London. His name was Tony Monaghan. He worked for an advertising agency.”

“Philby, Leyland and Associates,” said Banks. “How far did you get with that investigation?”

“Not far at all, beyond identifying the body and noting the cause of death. We interviewed a few people we knew were habitués of that particular public toilet, but we didn't get anywhere with them. We talked to a few people at the hotel, but nobody knew anything about him. He hadn't been staying there long and he was on his own. We even canvassed some of the students who lived nearby. One lad told me he was on his way home from a party late on the night in question, and he saw two men carrying a third slumped between
them, as if he was drunk, like. He said he thought it seemed funny because the two men didn't look like students—you get plenty of drunkenness and that sort of thing around the university—but they were like thugs, like boxers or all-in wrestlers. ‘Two burly bald blokes without necks' was how he put it, if I remember correctly. He didn't like the looks of them, so he got out of the way sharpish, like, before they saw him. The timing matched, but we couldn't get any further with it. There was no CCTV back then like there is these days. And it was a filthy night, raining and all, so the lad could have been mistaken. We did our best to carry out a thorough search of the park for a murder weapon or any other trace evidence, but we found nothing, and if there had been any trace evidence the rain would have washed it away.”

“But the two men
could
have been carrying Tony Monaghan's body towards the toilets?”

“They could have been.”

“What did you do?”

“I took the student's statement. That was it. We had a twelve-year-old kid stabbed and dumped on some waste land near Leeds Parish Church, so we gave all our attention to that. It was a nasty one. Kid, and all.”

“Did you solve that?”

“Oh, aye. Eventually. Stepfather confessed early in 1968. He'd been abusing the boy and he'd threatened to tell. It was a busy time. There was plenty of other stuff we worked on. Robberies, drugs, assaults, prostitution rings and so on, but these are the ones that stick in your mind over time.”

“True enough. Did you get the student's name?”

“I did, at the time, but I can't remember it now.”

“Was there a postmortem on Monaghan?”

“I'm sure there was,” Bradley said. “But . . .”

“What?”

“Well, it's funny, but a while later, sometime the following year, I tried to locate some of the Monaghan files, including the PM report.”

“Why did you do that?”

“A similar case. Similar MO, at any rate. There was no gay angle,
though, and it turned out to be a complete red herring. Bloke stabbed near a notorious public convenience. But it was the wife. Found out his dirty little secret and followed him there.”

“It was the similarity in method and location that sent you looking for the Monaghan files?”

“Yes. But I couldn't find them, couldn't find any postmortem report, nothing.”

“So within a year or so of what you admit was a superficial investigation, all traces of the crime had been somehow expunged from your files?”

“The files themselves had been taken. That's the only explanation for it.”

“Did you challenge DI Chadwick on it?”

“I asked him if he knew where they were, but he said he didn't. He was evasive. Said something about the chief constable taking an interest.”

“Edward Crammond?”

Bradley gave Banks a sharp glance. “You do work fast. Yes, Chief Constable Edward Crammond. A right bastard. And a reputation for hobnobbing with the rich and famous.”

“Including Caxton?”

“Indeed. You know what became of him, don't you?”

“Yes,” said Banks. “Both he and Chief Superintendent McCullen were dismissed for accepting bribes from a prominent Leeds drug-dealing gang in 1974. We found it in some old files.” Banks thought he heard a distant rumble of thunder. He looked toward Winsome and indicated that she should pick up the questioning, as they had determined on the drive down. After all, she had done most of the background work on the Monaghan case so far.

“Did you find any link between the young girl's complaint and the Tony Monaghan murder?” Winsome asked.

Bradley seemed surprised by the question. “Nay, lass. There weren't none. Not as I recall.”

“Whose decision was it to take no further action on the Monaghan murder?”

“That would have come from high up, just like with Caxton.”

“Chief Constable Edward Crammond?”

“Very likely.”

“Why would he have the files removed?”

“I don't know.”

“Can you guess?”

“Aye,” said Bradley. “Same as you can. And no doubt we'd come to the same conclusion.”

“How did you experience it?” she asked. “Down in the trenches. How was it put to you? I mean, I'm not long beyond being a mere DC myself, so I do have a clear memory of what it's like down there, even now. I've still no idea what the brass are thinking.” She glanced at Banks. “Not even him, half the time. I just get on with my job, do what I'm told.”

“Aye. That's the way it was then, too.”

“So if someone told you that was it, forget it, the case was closed, that's exactly what you'd do, no questions asked?”

“Of course,” said Bradley. “Unless you're Philip Marlowe or someone. You know as well as I do they don't have to give you a reason.”

“Was that how it happened?”

“As far as I can remember,” said Bradley. “One day I was talking to Monaghan's employers in London about the reason for his visit, the next thing Chiller came in and told me the case was over and done with. I asked him if that meant we'd got someone for it, but he just said no and walked out. End of story. Then, like I said, the files disappeared.”

“How did he seem when he told you this?”

“Chiller? Proper pissed off, if you'll pardon my language.”

“Weren't you curious about what happened?”

“Course I was, love. But I valued my job. And even if I'd wanted to, I didn't have time or the resources to go gallivanting about following up personal investigations. That sort of thing only happens on telly.”

“So that was the end of Tony Monaghan. Stabbed in a public toilet.”

“If you care to look at it that way.”

“What other way is there?”

“Some lifestyles are more dangerous than others. If you hang around notorious public toilets looking for rough trade you're taking a risk.”

“But Monaghan was a stranger in town,” said Winsome. “How would he know?”

Bradley tapped the side of his nose. “They knew. They all knew. There's a network.”

Banks finished the last of his tea. It was cold and slightly bitter. “Simon,” he said, “did you have any reason at all to think there was something fishy about the Tony Monaghan murder?”

“What? You mean other than the student's statement, being asked to drop the case and the files disappearing?”

“Well, that made two in a row that got quickly dropped, unless I'm missing something. Close together, too.”

“But they were different. I mean, I never really thought about the Caxton thing like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like the way we were talking about it earlier. Orders from above. You know. I never connected the two at all. I just assumed the girl must have been making it up.”

“And Monaghan?”

Bradley glanced out over the back garden. It wasn't as colorful as the front, but it was clearly well tended and cared for. “It just didn't feel right,” he said eventually.

“In what way?”

“I don't know.” Bradley gave a little shiver and tapped his stomach. “Haven't you ever had that feeling, a sort of gut instinct? You just
know
there's something wrong—what the Americans call hinky—and you can't quite grasp it.”

“Did you ever have any reason to think Tony Monaghan might
not
have been a homosexual?” Winsome asked. “Despite where his body was found. That his death might have been staged in some way?”

“Well, I did for a while, when I took the student's statement, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought he might have been mistaken.”

“Did you ever come across any evidence to prove that Monaghan
was
a homosexual?” Winsome asked.