A Lesser Evil Part 35

Roper frowned but didn't comment. 'So who told you about Trueman?' he asked.

'I heard a bloke in the pub talking about him, he said John Bolton had worked for him,' Dan lied. 'I asked around, discovered what he looked like, and that he had a red Jag. You could've found that out,' he added pointedly. 'And how come you never found his fingerprints in number eleven?'

'Surprisingly the man has no criminal record,' Roper said with some regret. 'He's been known to the Met for nigh on forty years, but they've never been able to pin anything on him, not even enough to get his prints. He didn't come into the frame for this because he doesn't normally extend his interests south of the river.'

'But Bolton managed one of his clubs!'

'Bolton had dealings with dozens of clubs.'Roper shrugged. 'We were still checking them all out. What you've got to remember is that a man like Trueman controls people through fear. No one would risk pa.s.sing us any information. But enough of that for now. How much has your wife been able to tell you about her abduction?'

'Nothing yet,' Dan said. 'Only that Yvette hanged herself. That must have been such a terrible shock that I'm not sure she'll ever get beyond that. So it's up to you now to find out why a powerful man like Trueman consorted with a piece of s.h.i.t like Alfie. That's the bit that doesn't make any sense to me.'

Roper said he would be back in the morning to see Dan again, and hopefully Fifi would be up to talking by then too.

'Taking Trueman on was very courageous,' he said, looking up at Dan with an expression of awe and respect. 'Everyone in the force has nothing but profound admiration for you rescuing your wife. Please tell her from us that we will round up all those who were involved, and the investigation into Angela's death will be finalized and the guilty punished.'

After Roper had left, Dan asked the ward sister if it would be possible for him to stay with Fifi all night. He explained that he couldn't bear to leave her, and that he was afraid she might have nightmares. Sister was very sympathetic and said there was no need for him to sleep in the chair, she would get a camp bed sent up for him.

Fifi was asleep by the time Dan got back to her room, so he took the opportunity to nip out and get himself some fish and chips. When he returned Fifi was still sleeping so he lay down on the camp bed.

It was cosy in the small room with the blinds pulled down and the only light, above the bed, shining down on some scrawny flowers he'd bought from a barrow at the hospital gates.

Outside in the corridor it was quiet now visitors had left, only the occasional trundling sound of a drugs or drinks trolley, and nurses hurrying past. Dan knew he would have to go back to the flat tomorrow or the day after to get Fifi some clean clothes, and he supposed he ought to go and phone the Rifleman and ask them to give the news that Fifi was safe to Frank, Miss Diamond and Stan. But although he wanted to pa.s.s on the good news and relieve everyone of worry, he knew they'd all be upset about Yvette. She might have been rather odd, but she'd lived in Dale Street for a long time and people had become fond of her.

It was strange that he hadn't really reacted to her death. He was horrified of course to see her hanging there, that was b.l.o.o.d.y awful. But once he was out of the barn with Fifi he kind of switched off about her.

He was curious now though. When did she do it? Did Fifi try to stop her?

He really hoped that by tomorrow Fifi would have recovered enough to want to talk and ask questions, then he'd really believe she was on the mend. But he didn't know how he would explain how he found out about Jack Trueman without revealing Nora Diamond's part in it. Dan was curious himself now about what the man had done to her. But he didn't suppose she'd ever tell him. He wasn't sure he was prepared to tell Fifi about the gun either, he thought she'd be horrified to know he'd been walking about with it in his pocket.

So many questions that needed answering! And if he had a load, how many more would the police have tomorrow? He wished he could just scoop Fifi up now and whisk her off somewhere peaceful and beautiful.

He was not going to take her back to Dale Street, ever.

Maybe it would be best to stay permanently in Bristol, so she never had reminders of all this again. It would be their first wedding anniversary on the 20th. What a terrible year it had been too! Surely it was time for something good to happen?

Fifi cried out suddenly, and Dan was off the camp bed and over to her in two seconds.

'It's okay, I'm here,' he said soothingly, gathering her into his arms.

For a second she looked as if she didn't know where she was, there was terror in her eyes. 'It was the rats,' she whispered. 'They were as big as cats and they were coming for me.'

'The only rat in here is me,' he said. 'And I'm the cuddly kind.'

She half smiled. 'It was so real,' she sighed. 'That's what I was most afraid of once I found Yvette dead. We used to hear them scuttling around at night, but we didn't actually see any.'

'So when did she do it?' Dan asked gently, moving round so that his back was supported on the bed rail while he held Fifi in his arms. 'Did you see it?'

Fifi shook her head and explained what happened. 'I think she went a bit mad at the end. She was talking in French, she said she thought she was with her mother. But that wasn't surprising after all she'd been through.'

Haltingly she began to tell him what Yvette had been through in Paris as a young girl. Dan was shocked, not just at the cruelty of it, but because he'd always had the idea Yvette was sort of born a spinster. He certainly couldn't imagine her in a bordello.

'I suppose she just didn't have anything to hang on for,' he said. 'I mean, no one of her own looking for her.'

'It wasn't that,' Fifi said in a small voice. She turned to him and buried her face in his chest, clutching his arms tightly. 'Oh Dan, when she told me about it, it didn't seem real. Nothing did while we were in the barn. But now!'

She began to sob, a harsh sound which came from deep within her. Dan held her close, whispering endearments, rea.s.suring her she was safe. He had expected that she'd break down once she thought over what she'd been through.

'What didn't seem real?' he asked after a little while. He thought it best to try to get her to talk. 'Do you mean Yvette's body hanging there?'

'No, that was terribly real,' she sobbed out. 'It was what she said.' Once again she buried her face against him.

Dan prised her from him, lifting her face and drying her tears with the edge of the sheet. 'So maybe it wasn't real then. Tell me and see what I think.'

'You won't believe it,' she whispered. 'I don't think anyone will.'

'Try me?' he whispered.

'She killed Angela.'

Dan almost wanted to laugh, and he might have done if he hadn't thought Fifi was losing her grip on reality. 'She couldn't have, sweetheart. Maybe she said she did, but she was obviously getting in a state. Maybe she meant it was her fault it happened because she hadn't reported the Muckles when she knew they treated their kids badly.'

'No, Dan, she really did do it,' she cried out.

As she began to tell him the story of that Friday night, the men arriving for the card game, Dan realized she was repeating what she'd been told by Yvette. At first he was just humouring her, listening but not taking it that seriously, but by the time she got to the part about Yvette crouching in her garden watching Molly offering Angela for sale, he knew this was what really happened. Suddenly it was almost as if he were there in that garden too.

'She heard the man upstairs with Angela,' Fifi sobbed.

'She said his name was Jack Trueman, and that's the name I heard you say to the policeman today. Is he the man you hit?'

'Yes.' Dan licked his lips nervously, feeling sick to his stomach that the man could hurt a child that way. 'Go on, what happened next?'

She continued with what took place the following day, right up to where Yvette put the pillow over Angela's face. 'She did do it, Dan, I know she did,' she sobbed. 'She even told me about getting the clean sheet to cover her.'

Dan was completely stunned. Had he known earlier today that it was Trueman who'd raped Angela, he wouldn't have stopped at just beating him up. He felt absolute disgust for the man and all the others who'd been there that night, and that made Yvette's part look almost kindly. But of course it wasn't. Yvette should have got help for the child the minute she knew what was going to happen. It wasn't her place to play G.o.d and decide the child would be happier dead.

'She must have been mad,' he exclaimed, so bewildered by what he'd heard, that seemed the only explanation.

'She called killing Angela the lesser evil,' Fifi said sorrowfully, clinging to Dan's chest. 'And I think she hanged herself because that was the lesser evil too.'

'Well, it saved her from a public trial,' Dan said grimly.

'No,' Fifi exclaimed, lifting her head to look at him. 'I know that wasn't her reason for it. She was a very moral person, I think she felt she must be punished. But starving to death with me would mean no one would ever know what she'd done. Even if we were rescued, it's doubtful she would have been hanged, because of the circ.u.mstances. By killing herself, she took what she saw as the appropriate punishment.'

's.h.i.t!' was all Dan could say.

They were silent for some time, Fifi lying in Dan's arms while he stared into s.p.a.ce. He couldn't really think about the bigger implications of what Yvette had done, only about how this nightmare week would affect Fifi.

Suddenly she sat up, turning to look at him again. 'The question is, do I tell the police about it?' she asked.

'Well yes, of course,' Dan said.

'But if I tell them they'll have to let Molly and Alfie out, won't they?'

Dan looked at her in consternation. 'Why?'

'Well, they can't hold them for murder, can they?'

Dan saw what she meant. 'But selling your seven-year-old daughter must be a pretty serious charge.'

'What proof of that is there?' Fifi asked. 'Yvette's dead. Jack Trueman isn't likely to admit he bought and raped Angela. You can bet that anyone else there that night will deny it too. So what would there be left to charge Alfie and Molly with? They didn't kill John Bolton, nor did they abduct Yvette and me.'

Dan was impressed that she could think things through so well after such an ordeal, and he could see her point. Alfie and Molly were two people anyone sane would want locked away for ever. 'But if no one else admits to raping Angela, Alfie will get charged with it.'

'And what will he get for that?' Fifi asked derisively. 'Five years maybe? That's if they can even find enough proof to convince a jury he did it. Molly will be right off the hook, won't she? She'll cry and say how much she loves her children and that she didn't know what was going on. Before you could say Jack Robinson she'll be back in that house with her children!'

Dan thought Alfie would get a longer sentence than five years, and he didn't think Molly would manage to wriggle out of any responsibility that easily either, or get her children back. But he could see Fifi's point: there wasn't a lot of hard evidence against the Muckles, not since Trueman abducted Fifi and Yvette. If Fifi chose not to reveal what she knew, there would be a kind of poetic justice in them being hanged or banged up for life for the one thing they didn't actually do, when they'd got away with so much in the past.

'Okay. But if you keep quiet, where does that leave Trueman? I don't only want to see him go down for John Bolton's murder and your abduction. I want to see him pilloried for raping Angela.'

Fifi nodded. 'Yes, but even if I tell the police what really happened that night, unless someone else who was there that night confirms it, he'll get away with that,' she said wearily. 'He won't admit having any part in Bolton's death either, will he? That only leaves s.n.a.t.c.hing Yvette and me.'

'And you can bet that right now, even in a hospital bed, he'll be working on some plausible story to cover that,' Dan said gloomily. 'And he's got enough money to hire a first-cla.s.s defence.'

They fell silent for a while, both thinking deeply about the pros and cons of revealing what Yvette did.

'I think you must tell the truth,' Dan said reluctantly after some little while. Whichever way he looked at it, he didn't feel right holding back something so serious. 'Low as the Muckles are, you can't let them be convicted of murder when they didn't do it. You'd have it on your conscience for ever.'

'Molly doesn't have any qualms about what she does to people,' Fifi argued. 'Yvette told her about the Paris brothel when she first came to England. She thought Molly was her friend then and she needed to talk about it. Molly blackmailed her with it, not asking for money as she did with Frank, but intimidating her so she would keep quiet about what she knew was going on at number eleven.'

'That's pretty evil, I agree,' Dan nodded. 'But Yvette could have moved away no one with even a grain of common sense would just stay and put up with all that.'

'Don't judge her so harshly, Dan.' Fifi took his hand in hers and kissed it. 'She was all alone, she came to believe Molly had almost witchlike powers to track her down. What she'd been through in the war left her very damaged and with tremendous guilt. I honestly think she felt kind of cheated by not ending up in Auschwitz or Belsen.'

Dan nodded. 'Okay. But there's more to this than just pinning Angela's death on someone. Alfie and Molly were never innocent bystanders. Trueman and the other men who were there that night came to wallow in Alfie's sty because I suspect he provided them with kicks they couldn't get anywhere else. You said Yvette hinted that there were other young people there in the past. Don't you think that needs investigating and exposing? It might also shock Trueman's thugs enough for them to come through with information about him which might make certain he never comes out of prison either.'

'I suppose you're right,' Fifi said wearily. 'I just wish I'd never poked my nose into anything. I never will again.'

'Can I hold you to that?' Dan grinned.

Martin heard the news that Jack Trueman had been beaten up when he called into the Bastille coffee bar at five-thirty on Tuesday to collect the day's takings. Patsy, the little blonde manageress, called him into the kitchen out the back and broke the news.

'There were police all over the place earlier this afternoon and we heard an ambulance too, but we didn't think nothing of it. Then one of the girls from Mirabelle's come running in here, said the police had gone swarming up into the office and found Jack tied up and beaten to a pulp.'

Martin was so staggered he could only stare wide-eyed at Patsy. He even thought it might be a wind-up.

'Who did it?' he asked eventually.

'Well, Tricia was told by Janice that it was this goodlooking bloke who came in the office that morning. He said he was going to meet Janice for lunch. But he didn't show, and when she got back to the office there was a note pinned on the door telling her not to go in, but wait for the police. They came soon after and they told Janice to go down into Mirabelle's while they investigated, and it weren't long after that the ambulance come and took Jack away.'

Martin immediately felt nervous because if this was the start of a turf war he knew Jack would expect all his men to retaliate hard and fast.

'It was to do with those two women that have gone missing, the ones that were in the paper,' Patsy said, tapping him on the arm because he didn't appear to be paying attention. 'Tricia reckoned the man was the pretty blonde one's old man.'

'You what?' Martin exclaimed. 'No, it can't have been!'

'Well, that's what she heard the coppers say,' Patsy retorted. 'But if Jack had got those women you'd have known about it, wouldn't you?'

Martin went all cold. He said he knew nothing about it, then, claiming he was in a hurry because he had other money to pick up, he took the bag of takings and rushed off.

He continued with his usual daily early-evening round of the businesses, collecting takings, putting them in the night safe at the bank, but his mind was working on two different levels. The higher level admired Dan Reynolds for having the b.a.l.l.s to take on Jack Trueman and he hoped that by now Fifi and the Frenchwoman had been rescued. He even hoped Trueman was so badly injured he'd either die or have to retire.

But on the lower level he knew this meant he was going to be in serious trouble. Fifi could identify him and Del.

He met up with Del at nine at Cindy's, the stripclub in Greek Street. Del told him that he'd just heard a news bulletin on the radio. The women had been found out at Bexley. One had been taken to hospital, but the other woman was dead. It was also said a man was being held in custody.

Martin had to tell him what he knew then.

Del lost all his bluff and bl.u.s.ter. He looked very scared.

'I don't f.u.c.kin' well know what to do,' he exclaimed. 'I mean, do we carry on with the job? Or do we p.i.s.s off out of here?'

'We won't get paid if Jack's in the nick,' Martin said. He meant that they might as well disappear now while they could.

'Yeah, but if we p.i.s.s off and he gets out...' Del didn't finish what he was going to say. There was no need, they both knew what Jack would do to them.

'Well, I'm not hanging around here to wait till we're picked up,' Martin shrugged. 'I'm going home to me gran's. Until we know the score.'

'What's put the smile back on your face, sir?' Sergeant Mike Wallis asked as he came into the office and found his superior looking extraordinarily happy.

It was mid-morning on Thursday and Roper had been like a bear with a sore head all the previous day.

'I've just had Bow Street on the blower,' Roper grinned. 'Seems one of Trueman's gofers has been spilling his guts. I usually go along with the saying "There's no honour amongst thieves", but it seems this one doesn't like to see children or fair damsels being hurt.'

'You don't say!' Sergeant Wallis grinned. 'More like he knows it's going to come on top of him and he's trying to save his skin.'

'I don't give a toss what his reasons are, the result is all that matters. And you and I are off to Brixton to see Alfie Muckle.'

Almost as soon as the police got to St Anne's Court in answer to Dan Reynolds' call on Tuesday afternoon, a search warrant was issued for Trueman's house in Ess.e.x. But by the time the police got there, just a few hours later, the filing cabinet was empty, the safe was too, and the door was hanging open. Someone had beaten the police to the house and removed any incriminating evidence.

When John Bolton was found dead before Roper could question him about the man he was seen in Dale Street with, it had briefly crossed his mind that there might be a leak at the station, but he'd shrugged it off as being mere coincidence. Even when Dan Reynolds said that he hadn't gone to the police because he couldn't risk Trueman being forewarned, he only thought Reynolds was a trifle paranoid, which was to be expected under the circ.u.mstances.

Yet less than an hour later, as he looked at that empty safe, he had to concede Reynolds was right. Fewer than ten people knew that Trueman's house was going to be raided, and all of them were policemen. If the raid had been left to the following day he might have believed one of Trueman's stooges had just used his initiative on hearing he had been arrested. But the speed at which it happened told him otherwise, and Roper felt as if he'd been kicked in the belly.

On Wednesday morning he'd spent the morning at the Middles.e.x Hospital trying to get something out of Trueman. The man was handcuffed to the bed and an officer was posted outside the door, but Roper was still on tenterhooks expecting that Trueman's men would attempt to spring him. The man refused to speak, he just lay there like something out of a horror film, acting as if he was deaf and dumb. Roper had been tempted to continue Dan Reynolds' work; pain seemed to be the only thing that made some villains talk.

Then he drove over to the hospital in South London to interview Fifi Reynolds, and she dropped the bombsh.e.l.l that Angela Muckle was smothered by the Frenchwoman.

He had been convinced Alfie had killed Angela, and the prospect of him being hanged had brightened many a bad day, for the Muckles had been a thorn in his side for almost his entire working life. He had a file some ten inches thick with complaints about them, and there was no doubt they were involved to some extent with half the crimes committed on his patch. Yet each time he thought he'd finally got enough proof to put them away, some piece of new evidence or a rock-solid alibi always turned up, and his case against them fell apart.