Dressed To Kill (A Kate O'Donnell Mystery) Read Free Page A

Jackson’s lack of interest in this case offended him. This kid deserved better, he thought.
    ‘We don’t think she was killed here,’ he said. ‘Were you doing anything unusual the day before, or the night before?’
    ‘I lead a borin’ life, man, with my woman,’ Abraham said. ‘I come to work, I go home an’ go to bed, I wake up, eat an’ come to work again. My music an’ my woman keep me content.’
    Barnard nodded and leaned back in his faded and worn plush seat. This place needed someone with a bit of money to put into it, he thought. He wondered vaguely whether Ray Robertson might take an interest, but he suspected that Ray was only interested in clubs if they paid a social as well as a financial return. This place was being blown out of the water by the sudden changes in taste that had hurtled the Beatles to the Palladium this year. The musicians were middle aged at best and the majority of their fans probably even older.
    He glanced across to the bar where Chris Swift was leaning, staring in their direction, a glass raised to his lips.
    ‘Could you ask your clarinet man to come and have a word?’
    Abraham shrugged and got to his feet.
    ‘You’re not thinking of taking a trip any time soon?’ Barnard added quickly. ‘Not a trip to New Orleans?’
    Abraham laughed but it was a sour sound. ‘If I’d wanted to go back stateside I’d have gone a long time ago,’ he said. ‘Bein’ black ain’t all roses here but it’s a damn sight better than there. I’ll get Chris for you.’
    Swift took Abraham’s place with even less enthusiasm than Abraham had showed. His expression, Barnard thought, was quite simply hostile, his mouth a pursed line behind the whispy beard, his eyes blank, and he wondered why.
    ‘What’s all this about then?’ he asked. Barnard showed him the photograph of Jenny Maitland and he looked at it impassively. ‘Who’s she?’ he asked.
    ‘The kid who was found dead in the club’s back yard last week,’ Barnard said. ‘Have you ever seen her in the club, or anywhere else for that matter?’
    Swift shook his head. ‘Never,’ he said. ‘I thought the rumour was that she was a tart. Old man Weston keeps the whores out of here. Quite right, too. They’re a distraction from the music. If people want sex they can find it easily enough on the streets here around here, can’t they? You lot don’t seem to do much to keep it under control. Grease your palms too well do they, the pimps?’
    ‘All that bothers you, does it, Mr Swift?’ Barnard asked, slightly surprised by the aggressive tack the clarinettist was taking. He hadn’t expected such a puritanical reaction here.
    ‘Yes it does,’ he flashed back. ‘I’m a serious musician, Sergeant, and most of the people who come to the club are serious about jazz. In many ways it’s a pity the club is in this neighbourhood, amongst the poofs and pimps and good-time girls.’
    ‘Can’t be much different from New Orleans in the old days,’ Barnard observed mildly.
    ‘That was then, and in another country,’ Swift said flatly. ‘In America jazz is shaking off that sleazy reputation. Jazz is filling the concert halls. Can you imagine us being offered the Albert Hall?’
    Barnard tired of this argument quickly. ‘So do I take it you’ve never seen this girl? Or any others like her in the club?’ he asked.
    ‘Never,’ Chris Swift said. ‘Can we get on with our rehearsal now?’
    Barnard nodded, wondering why Swift was so sure that the club was clean while Muddy Abraham had recognized Jenny immediately as someone who had definitely been around. He watched Swift hurry back to the bar and suddenly recognized a lever, if a dirty one, to persuade DCI Jackson to launch a serious investigation into the girl’s death. Whatever Swift said, Abraham had offered the possibility that soliciting was going on inside the Jazz Cellar and the DCI would not like that one little bit. In fact he would be determined to put a stop to it. And