Mistress Murder Read Free

the ex-jockey.
    â€˜Bloody awful – but don’t worry, it’s nothing to do with – the racket.’
    Snigger allowed his George Robey eyebrows another excursion up his forehead, but said nothing. He knew better than to push his curiosity with Paul Golding.
    â€˜Going over tomorrow?’ he asked instead.
    â€˜Yes, Brussels this time. How much do you want?’ Snigger, his name an obvious parody on his unfortunate real one of Leonard Gigal, looked cautiously over his shoulder to see if the door was shut. Heroin … as much as you like. That last lot of morphine you dumped on me will take months to get rid of.’
    Paul nodded. He straightened his back and pulled the plug out of the basin.
    â€˜Right – can you take five hundred grams?’
    The barman whistled.
    â€˜Five hundred! OK, I’ll take it. They all seem to be after the hard stuff these days … it may take a few weeks to palm off, mind.’
    Paul nodded and went to dry his hands at a roller towel. ‘I’ll be back on Thursday … come up Friday night for it, usual place.’
    Gigal looked curiously at the other man. Golding was affable, but drew a strict line about the limits of his confidence in people. Snigger tried again, tentatively.
    â€˜How you going this time, Rotterdam routine again?’ Paul looked hard at him, his jaw muscles tensing.
    â€˜No, I’m not,’ he said harshly. ‘The less you know, the less you can spill when you get picked up.’
    Snigger smiled weakly. He accepted the brush-off and the hint that the Metropolitan Police would catch up with him sooner or later. The innuendo that when he was nicked he would do well to keep his mouth shut was not lost on him either. He decided to change the subject.
    â€˜Rita’s looking smashing tonight – smartest bird that comes in here.’ He grinned ingratiatingly, showing his loose oversize dentures.
    â€˜Shut up – let’s get out of here. Folks’ll wonder what we’re up to.’
    Just outside the toilet, Paul stopped in the shadow of a supporting pillar and looked towards the bar. Rita was still on her stool, openly searching the club with her eyes. Paul waited a moment to see if she had any success. The tape recorder had given him the sound of the other man’s voice, but it had not been one he recognised. And, infuriatingly, never once had either he or Rita spoken his name, not even the Christian name. Paul remembered the endearments – and worse – that had passed between them.
    He felt no jealousy, only annoyance at the enforced break-up of a carnally satisfactory arrangement. But more serious, there was the anxiety about the safety of his identity and his drug smuggling business.
    He saw no sign that Rita had recognised anyone and he made his way back to her.
    â€˜Shall we dance?’ he said.
    They spent the rest of the time until the 11.30 cabaret, clinging together on the tiny floor, swaying to the smooch music of the four-piece band. There was no twisting or shaking here. This was strictly a hideout for the tired and not-so-tired business man who wanted to get to grips with his social life in the shape of a young woman.
    There was nothing about the place that would attract the attention of the Yard Vice Squad, but an unaccompanied tired businessman had only to cross Snigger’s palm with a fiver for an attractive girl to appear within five minutes, to be his drinking and dancing partner. What she chose to do when the club closed at two thirty was her own business, as far as the club was concerned.
    Half an hour before midnight, the already dim lights went down even further and a blue spotlight appeared on the stage. For the first time, the club owner appeared, his shirt front glowing in the eerie light. There was a desultory burst of applause and he held his hands up for silence.
    Snigger snorted from behind the bar where he was polishing a glass.
    â€˜Think he was going