THE GAUDY SHADOWS Read online

“He also gives private parties. The fee is a thousand pounds.”

  Well, I don’t suppose that’s what he charged Medea for her “private view” the other night!

  As usual, Sammy had taken little personal interest in a loan made by his firm to a middle-aged East German refugee. He preferred projects mounted by bright young men anxious to get ahead early in life. Skelton became one of Tileman’s first clients, but there was no reason why he should mention what Tileman was doing to Sammy—from the loan company’s viewpoint, all that mattered was that repayments should be made on time. And indeed Dramagic Ltd, official recipients of the money, were doing convincingly well.

  And then Sammy ran into Dagmar.

  “He always had a weakness for slim blondes,” Laird murmured. “How did it happen?”

  “You must understand I had been here for more than three years,” Dagmar said. “And all the time what I learned was through Dr Tileman. I had only known one sort of life, one sort of person—and always there was the sword over my head, that he could make me so miserable I would wish to die. At first he hardly trusted me where he could not see me. Even when I went to English classes he would take me there on his way to work and order me to stay all day until he came back for me. And I was afraid of the police, and… Never mind. Later, he began to send me to buy things for him, and when the firm was started of course he made me work as his secretary and I did many things by myself. And he had me learn to drive, because he never learned how when he was young.”

  Laird nodded. It was a point that hadn’t struck him before, but presumably in East Germany cars were uncommon enough for someone in Tileman’s position to manage without being able to drive.

  “Then…” Dagmar coloured. “Then one day your friend picked me up. It was while I was out shopping for the doctor. I was in a big store and I was feeling so lonely! He saw I was sad and came to talk to me, and said he wanted to take me to lunch with him, and I agreed, and while we were eating we began to discuss all kinds of things. He was not like anyone else I had met in England. I had seen many rich people who came to Apricots, of course, but they treated me as—as a piece of furniture! So I told him what I have never told anyone else before tonight, those same things I am telling you.”

  She looked down, embarrassed, at her hands. “I think he made me drunk with gin,” she added after a pause. “I had not the least idea to talk so much!”

  “And that was when he found out what money from his loan company was being used for, hm?”

  “He was so angry!” Dagmar exclaimed. “But he was so calm, also. He asked me all the things he needed to know, and then he said he wanted to stay and talk more but he had to go and meet somebody, so I should go back to the office and wait for something to happen, and when it did…” Her voice failed.

  “Yes?” prompted Laird.

  “When it did I should be free of my fear, because Dr Tileman would not be able to harm me.”

  “When did this meeting take place?”

  “It was exactly one day and a half before he died. Thirty-six hours.”

  “And he died because…?”

  “Because Dr Tileman came here, to his home, and brought with him the hallucinogen and the depressant.”

  Laird sat silent. Everything was interlocking now: Shannon’s account of how Sammy had reacted under LSD, Courcy’s reference to Sammy’s behaviour at the Flanceaus’ party, even Tileman’s eagerness to contact Medea.

  What had Sammy seen as he lay dying? The naked poverty of his childhood, the jaws of hell opening for him, a backslider from the Number of the Elect? It didn’t matter. It had been the thing that he was most afraid of in all the world.

  Christ, what an awful way to die!

  “What did Sammy do? Did he approach Tileman directly?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know what he said?”

  “Yes. He said that any drug like Dr Tileman’s ought to be—ought to be used to cure people in mental hospitals, not made into a toy for rich stupid bastards. He said that to me, exactly, and promised he would say it to Dr Tileman.”

  So of all the wealthy men in London from whom Tileman might have obtained finance for his drug-party project, he’d hit on one who owed his own sanity to the use of LSD therapy. A man in that situation would hardly approve of a potentially valuable drug being used as a “toy for rich stupid bastards”.

  There was a long silence. At last Dagmar stirred. She said, “I am so glad to have told you the truth! I am tired of being frightened! Even though I understood at once how Sammy was killed, I was afraid to go to the police—I knew Dr Tileman would keep his word, and find a way to give me the depressant to make me kill myself.”

  She clenched her fists. “But tonight I saw he was as much afraid of you!”

  “Yes, he did seem to be scared,” Laird said. “What I can do to get back at him, though…” He heard in memory Lewis’s voice saying that once a case had been closed with a proper inquest verdict it was hell’s own job to have it reopened. Tileman had so many powerful and wealthy friends—or rather customers—that it would take more than the word of a nervous girl to put him in court.

  Was there a chance of shopping him to the police for holding a drug party? He checked with Dagmar, and she shook her head.

  “He is careful about that. Always has been. He can release the antidote very quickly, and although it takes a long time for people to become normal again after they have breathed it for an hour or more the result of the drug can be mistaken for ordinary drunkness. Drunkness…?”

  “Drunkenness,” Laird supplied, scowling. He’d seen for himself that there was plenty of wine on the premises at Apricots, even if there were no spirits, and the drug squad would be looking for something conventional—hypodermics, marijuana roaches—which of course they wouldn’t find.

  And these days you could always explain away the trappings by calling it a Happening!

  The frustration was maddening. He had just been told in detail how Sammy had been murdered, and logic informed him there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. Dagmar’s hopeful expression made it plain that she expected him to work an instant miracle. His brain refused to oblige. He let the silence stretch until it was unbearable, and then rose.

  “Well, what we have to do now is wait.”

  “But—!” Dagmar began.

  “Didn’t you say Tileman was afraid of me?”

  “Y-yes…”

  “A frightened man is one who easily makes mistakes. If Tileman panics, he’ll dig a trap for himself. Then we can come up behind and push him in.”

  Dagmar also got to her feet. “I think he will,” she declared firmly. “I am certain he will!”

  I wish I was half as sure myself!

  “You live at Tileman’s place?” Laird said eventually.

  “Yes, ever since I come here I five with him.”

  “Well, obviously you can’t go back there.”

  “I will never go back.”

  “I guess not. In which case, I’d better put you to bed. This way.”

  He led her into the bedroom and gestured for her to go in while he checked the closets for spare blankets, thinking he would spend the night on the long lounge. But either Sammy had put his extra bedding in store for the summer, or he didn’t own any. Unless it was kept on the upstairs landing, where there was a cupboard he hadn’t investigated.

  Turning away, he started. Dagmar, on the far side of the bed, had unzipped her dress and was thrusting it down over her hips, her full pale breasts high over the dark cups of her bra as she leaned forward. Stepping free of the garment, she draped it over the end of the bed—and halted in mid-movement as she became aware of Laird’s gaze.

  “Do you not want me to…?” Her voice was barely more than a whisper. “Is something wrong?”

  Somebody else asked me that the other day.

  “No, I think something’s come right,” he answered. “The first time I saw you, I thought, ‘What’s the matter with that girl? She�
�s lovely and she ought to walk like a queen!’ And right now you look”—he searched for the word and found it—“you look proud!”

  She delayed her reply until she had peeled off the rest of her clothes, laying them carefully on top of her dress. Then, not looking directly at him, she said, “Yes. I have been made to do many things for men I loathed, but this is because I, I myself, want to do it. I won a big victory over myself tonight.”

  She climbed forward on the bed to wait for him.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The shrilling of a bell ate like acid into the armour of sleep enclosing Laird’s mind. He stirred a little and blinked, but made no move to go and answer. On the other pillow, haloed by her beautiful ash-blonde hair, Dagmar was smiling in her sleep.

  Somehow, by chance more than intention, he had smashed down some of the barricades around her personality; he remembered vividly how her eyes had danced. It was great to see that smile. He rolled over towards her and let himself drift back into a doze.

  Noises from elsewhere reached him, but he didn’t try to fit them into a pattern. A door opening. Footsteps. And—

  “Goodness, I’m sorry!”

  He jolted upright and stared. Standing in the bedroom doorway, trim in stretch slacks and a very tight red shirt: Courcy.

  The movement disturbed Dagmar. Sleepily she opened one eye, then both, and gave a gasp. She snatched at the sheet, which had slipped away from her bosom during the night. There was a moment of total silence.

  Then Courcy put the back of her hand to her mouth and began to giggle.

  “I didn’t think you were here!” she forced out.

  “How in the world did you get in? And why?” demanded Laird.

  “I left my ear-rings behind yesterday morning. When you didn’t answer I used the keys Sammy gave me. I still have them.” She held them up, jingling.

  Laird made a noise halfway between a sigh and a snort, and she came forward with sudden decision to sit on the end of the bed and grin at him.

  “Good morning, anyway. It’s going to be a nicer day than yesterday—the sun’s out.” She thrust the keys into the pocket of her slacks. To Dagmar she added, “You’re beautiful! Who are you?”

  Laird threw back his head and laughed out loud, and Dagmar gave a timorous smile.

  “Courcy, meet Dagmar. Dagmar, meet Courcy. And you know something? I think this is a crazy town, but I like it pretty well.”

  “So you damned well should,” Courcy said tartly. “Want me to make you some coffee? I know my way around this place.”

  “Great idea—thank you. But…” All of a sudden memory from last night came rushing into Laird’s mind. “Courcy, I have some bad news for you about Sammy.”

  Her small lovely face grew serious, as though a cloud had darkened the sun.

  “You were right. It wasn’t just a heart-attack.”

  There was an unbearable pause. Eventually she got to her feet.

  “I see,” she whispered. “So I’d better go and get that coffee. I ought to hear about it from someone who’s awake enough to make sense.”

  And she hurried out of the room.

  Just as the door swung to behind her, the phone sounded, and he clawed at it.

  More goddamn complications!

  “This is Bitchy,” said a husky voice, and at once he was cold and in full possession of himself.

  “Morning, Bitchy. I have news for you which ought to square our accounts.”

  “Blast you. By the sound of it you got there as fast as I did, and this is bad for reputations as precarious as mine. Well, what have you found out?”

  “Sammy was murdered. And I know who did it, and how, and I don’t think I can do a blind thing about it.”

  The phone emitted a low whistle. Bitchy said, “I hope to Christ you’re wrong!”

  “About which half of it?” Laird countered sourly. “Look, suppose you tell me what you’ve got for me—it might change my opinion.”

  From the corner of his eye he watched Dagmar getting out of bed. He made stabbing motions towards the built-in wardrobes; she caught on, slid back one of the doors to reveal a line of bright dressing-gowns, and belted one of them around her.

  Courcy was damned right. She is beautiful.

  “Ah, hell!” Bitchy was saying meantime. “Well, I have some dirt on Tileman, but it’s nebulous. I know he runs an operation which enables him to pressurise a lot of people who can’t normally be pushed, including someone with influence over who does and who doesn’t get British nationality ahead of the usual time. And the grapevine keeps saying dope! But like I told you, there simply isn’t enough money around to—to leave room for Tileman! He must be pulling down twenty or thirty thousand pounds a year, and I’ll take my oath that there isn’t more than three times that in the H trade around London, which is the only one that pays real money.”

  “Correct,” Laird said. “What Tileman’s peddling isn’t H. I went to one of his functions last night.”

  “What? You bastard! I’ve been pulling every string I can find, and… Oh, skip that. Tell me who killed Sammy.”

  “Tileman did.”

  “How?”

  Exploring, Dagmar had come to the shower cabinet and was asking mute permission to use it. Laird gave her a vigorous nod.

  “A mixture of a hallucinogen and a depressant which can make phobias appear completely real. You said you knew about Sammy’s stay in the Brankside Hospital, didn’t you?”

  “That’s right. He said he had phobias which came out under LSD treatment. And you’re claiming this drug made them so vivid he died of fright?”

  “That seems to be the size of it.”

  “Then that must have been the stuff the pathologist found in his spinal fluid.”

  Laird snapped his fingers. “Yes, of course! I hadn’t thought of that!”

  “Who’s your authority for all this?” Bitchy demanded.

  “Dagmar Schell—Tileman’s secretary. He’s been keeping her under control by threatening to dose her with his depressant. She had a whiff of it once and it nearly made her commit suicide. And I can vouch myself for the quality of his hallucinogen. I never dreamed of anything like it.”

  “Is that all you’ve got?”

  “I’m afraid so. Do you agree that I can’t do anything about it?”

  “Damnation! Yes, and I wish I didn’t! Reopening a case like this calls for Christ alone knows how much paperwork. You have to go clear to the Home Secretary to have a body exhumed, and— Hell, even that wouldn’t work! There isn’t anything to be exhumed; Sammy left his body to a teaching hospital!”

  There was a bleak pause. At length Laird said, “Well, don’t take my word and quit because of it. I have a contact at Scotland Yard who seems to be as worried about the Logan case as I am. If I can reach him on a Sunday, I’ll have a talk with him.”

  “You must mean Derek Lewis,” Bitchy said. “Yes, do that—I think he’s a nice guy. Meantime I’ll milk every contact I have myself. Will you be at home the rest of today?”

  “I guess I can arrange to be.”

  “Right, I’ll be in touch.”

  A quarter-hour later, Courcy finally appeared in the living-room with the promised coffee and a platter of toast. Her eyes were red and a little swollen, and she was uncharacteristically subdued. Showered, dressed again in her short black frock, Dagmar attempted to help her with the tray and was brushed aside.

  “Sorry,” Courcy said a moment afterwards, when she had set down her load on the coffee-table. “I’ve had a hell of a shock, you know… Laird, are you certain?”

  Tugging his shirt into place around his waist, Laird nodded. He gave her the same details as he had given Bitchy.

  “You told him all this?” Courcy asked Dagmar. Receiving a nod, she added, “Thanks.”

  “Please?”

  “I said thanks. Sammy was too nice a guy for someone to do that to him and get away with it.”

  “That’s just it, Courcy,” Laird said. “Knowing is on
e thing; doing anything about it is another.”

  “But there must be something we can do!”

  “Sure! Right now, as soon as I’ve had some coffee, I’m going to try and reach a detective inspector I talked to already, who wants to know anything I find out. But the fact stands: a coroner’s inquest brought in a verdict of natural death, and to upset that you need more than one person’s word. We’ll see what wheels we can start turning, though.”

  First: a duty operator at Scotland Yard. It took all Laird’s powers of persuasion to swing the deal, but eventually the man was pressured into parting with a Wembley phone-number at which Lewis could probably be reached. Laird dialled it.

  An ill-tempered voice said, “Lewis here!”

  “Laird Walker here, inspector.”

  “Oh, Christ. What do you want?”

  “I know how Sammy Logan was murdered.”

  A whistling intake of breath, and instant reversion to his official manner. “Have you anything we can use?” Lewis snapped.

  “Not yet, I guess. But here’s the background.” For the third time Laird rehearsed the facts; practice enabled him to condense them into half a dozen concise sentences.

  When he finished, Lewis didn’t respond at once. Finally he said, “Thank God there are a few sensible people in the world.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, you seem to understand the difficulty of putting a case together that’ll secure a conviction. I told you: the other day, I saw that villain up in Birmingham get away with something that ought to have brought him three years—GBH, grievous bodily harm. He cut the other man’s bloody ear off! I know he did it, my super knows he did it, his lawyer knows he did it… and we can’t put him in front of a jury because he’s got a pal to swear he was somewhere else. This kind of thing makes me bloody mad, and yet I have to put up with it because I’m in policework to see that justice is done and seen to be done. So it would be nice to nail someone else who thinks he’s getting away with it. What would he have had to do with the drug, assuming you’re right?”

  Laird looked around the room.

  “Well, spray it, I guess. Turn off the air-conditioner, make sure the windows were tight shut… Kind of a gas-attack.”