The Pig-tail Murder Read online

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter One

  The zip at the back of Della’s black dress had been giving trouble all evening. Now it seemed to have stuck for good. Just for one ghastly moment she thought she was not going to be able to get the garment off at all. Her arms were aching as if they had been bound behind her back and she could sense that Max would be getting restless. In the end she had to squirm energetically so as to twitch the back of the dress to the front where she could see the zip and unlock it. Then she reversed the dress once more and wriggled out of it. In the end the impromptu performance turned out to be quite a success. A little flutter of clapping came from the five rows of seats behind her. She wondered if she might even make this a permanent feature of her act. A stripper who had a real problem about how to take her clothes off might provide a welcome novelty.

  She turned to present her breasts to the audience, shaking her shoulders in time to the music so as to make her bosom bounce a bit. From seven feet away the spotlight stared at her, its cyclopean eye showing green, purple, red and blue in turn. The loudspeaker hiccuped as a clumsy join in the tape passed through the rollers, then launched into ‘Strangers in the Night’. Della’s smile never faltered as she adjusted her little dance to the new beat.

  She was almost there now. Just the little black G-string remained. She turned and shimmied towards the silk draperies which formed a backing to the tiny stage so that the men could have a look at her rear view, wiggled it to and fro a few times and then moved to the chair at the side of the stage. To keep within the Lord Chamberlain‘s requirements she would have to take up the little strip of mock leopardskin before she shed her G-string. Complete nudity was only permissible if you were absolutely static.

  Leila, the thick-thighed coloured girl who would follow her, was already waiting in the wings. The business with the zip had put Della behind schedule. It was vital not to run behind time, otherwise the whole intricate system would be put out of joint. She cut down the business with the leopardskin, posed with one knee demurely advanced in the centre of the stage and let the strip of material drop. That was Max’s cue to bring the curtain down.

  “You’ll have to do something about that zip, ducks,” Max hissed at her as she stepped down into the tiny changing room.

  She nodded, glancing at the clock. She had a little less than five minutes to be at the ‘Paris-Plaisir’. It was not a moment when she could afford to let her concentration wander. Leila was on stage, gazing aloofly down at the five rows of white moon-faces. For the moment there were two sets of street clothes in the cubicle. The unforgivable sin was to get another girl’s clothes mixed up with your own. She quickly folded her dress and leopardskin and packed them with her high-heeled shoes in the carrier bag, pulled on a pair of stretch trousers and a pullover, stuck her feet into sneakers and was ready for the street.

  Della had been on the go now for eight hours and there were still three to come. She had calculated that in the course of her day’s work she covered eight miles, scurrying round her circuit of Soho clubs. They paid her twenty quid a week and she reckoned she earned every penny of it. At this time of night there were always half a dozen strippers to be seen on the move, all identifiable by their stage make-up and the little carrier bags in which they transported their gear – filmy shawls, clingy plastic, ostrich feathers and mock leopardskin. They were hardened to running the gauntlet of male whistles and stares. The danger of assault was nil. Apart from the numerous police there were scores of anonymous denizens of Soho who would move in with knife or razor to the aid of any stripper trouble.

  The ‘Paris-Plaisir’ was fairly plush – for a strip club. There was a side entrance so you didn’t have to push in and out through the customers and submit to their clumsy attempts to make you squeeze against them. The changing room provided accommodation for several girls at a time and with your own cubicle you didn’t risk getting your gear mixed up. In addition the auditorium was longer and the taped music of much better quality, so you didn’t have the spotlight staring into your face or those tiresome breaks in the music.

  She was just about ready when Doris finished her act. Doris was a sweet girl but she had the figure of a plum pudding. It was a mystery to Della how she made a living as a stripper. Max had explained it to her once. There were a lot of men who were relieved when Doris came on. They felt that, whereas the glamorous women with the shapely figures would never look at them twice, Doris might be within their reach. She was homely.

  “Please, God, don’t let my zip stick again,” Della prayed as she stepped onto the stage.

  She could see more of what was happening in the auditorium of the ‘Paris-Plaisir’ than in most of the other clubs. The closest seats were only a yard away from her feet. The faces of their occupants were fixed on her body with intent and serious concentration. At the back of the room, behind the second-hand cinema seats, stood a group of hazy figures. Among them was what all strippers hate most, a woman spectator.

  Just before she turned to let them watch her undo the zip, she saw a man move forward from the group at the back and make for the door that led through to the ladies’ dressing room. A moment later she heard it open and close. That was unusual in itself. Tino, the ‘Paris-Plaisir’s’ manager, generally moved in pretty fast to stop anyone who tried that one.

  Her prayer was answered and this time the zip ran smoothly. She made a special effort with the leopardskin and was rewarded with a nice lot of applause. She was still smiling when she entered the little cubicle.

  The smile froze abruptly. The man who had come through the ladies’ room seemed to have taken over the cubicle as his permanent home. He had tilted the chair back against the wall, and parked his feet on the edge of the dressing table. His hat had been dumped on top of her make-up case and he was calmly watching her in the mirror. His age was around thirty but his features were rugged and his eyes wise beyond their years. His smile appeared friendly enough but Della’s heart began to pound.

  “What are you doing here? Why can’t you leave me alone?”

  “We never finished our little chat, Della. You ran out on me. Don’t you remember?”

  “Well, I can’t talk to you now. I’m supposed to be at the ‘Keyhole’ in four minutes. Now will you please move out of my chair and let me sit down?”

  “It won’t take you a minute to tell me what I want to know.”

  He had removed his feet from the table and turned to face her directly. Della had run off the stage in the nude, grasping her discarded garments against her chest. The trousers and pullover which she wanted to put on were draped over the back of the chair he was sitting in.

  “Look – I’ve told you everything I know. There’s nothing more to say . . . Now, will you please leave me in peace. I’ve got work to do.”

  She started to pull the trousers from behind him. He stood up and seized her by the arms.

  “Della, you’ve got to tell me. I must know who this man is.”

  “Listen – I haven’t the faintest who he is.” She was struggling to free herself, but his grip on her was relentless. “I don’t know anything about him.”

  “I don’t believe you. If that’s true why are you so scared every time I try and talk to you?”

  She stopped struggling and stood looking up at him with worried hesitation. The door from the street opened and closed. The next girl had arrived to get ready for her show.

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; “I’ll see you later,” she murmured quickly. “My last show ends at one o’clock. I’ll meet you at the Mini-Bar. We can talk there.”

  He released her. She immediately grabbed her trousers and began to wriggle into them.

  “Last time you said that you didn’t turn up.”

  “Yes, I know, but – I’ll come tonight. I promise. You were right when you said I was scared.”

  He moved out of her way so that she could fold her dress.

  “All right. It’s a deal. But listen. Instead of going to the Mini-Bar pick up a cab when you’ve finished and come to my flat. You know where it is.”

  “Yes, Ladbroke Road. What’s the number again? Fourteen?”

  “Number twelve, second floor. You won’t let me down?”

  “No. When I say a thing I mean it.”

  He nodded, picked up his hat and made his way out into the darkened auditorium. No one gave him a glance as he pushed towards the exit; they were all too intent on the stage. At the doorway he patted the shoulder of the man sitting at the table where ‘membership’ subscriptions were taken.

  “Thanks, Tino.”

  “Any time for you, Fred. ’Night.”

  Outside in the street a group of Lancashire business lads up in the Metropolis for a conference were nervously eyeing the carefully posed photographs and signs promising ‘Twelve Gorgeous Models’. Fred Bellamy resisted the temptation to warn them that they would be sadly disappointed by what they found inside. He turned left and walked slowly down towards Old Compton Street. On the pavement at the corner a young man had collected a small crowd. He had a guitar in his hand, a drum and a cymbal on his back and a mouth organ fixed to a prong within reach of his mouth. A spotty youth in jeans was going round with a collecting bag. He approached Bellamy, who put in a sixpence and then moved on as a constable came up to warn the musician that he was causing an obstruction on the foot-path.

  In his more imaginative moments, which were few and far between, Bellamy liked to think of Soho as a jungle where he was the leopard and all the little pimps and con-men were the jackals and baboons. They scuttled off into their lairs when he approached and then emerged to chatter and grimace at his back. He knew all the tracks of this jungle intimately, was familiar with every gambling den, strip joint and cellar club. He knew the names of the prostitutes who lurked just inside the doors of dimly-lit premises cooing invitingly to the men passing by. Dangerous little groups of short, dark men tended to disperse mysteriously at his approach, and the uniformed commissionaires at the smarter eating places nodded respectfully to him. Tonight, however, Bellamy was not interested in the small game of this jungle of his. He knew that somewhere in the undergrowth a man-eater was hiding out – a man-eater that had tasted blood already and was thirsty for more.

  He walked down Windmill Street, past the old theatre now converted to a gambling saloon, and the cinemas dedicated to nudist films. On the pavement in Shaftesbury Avenue he paused and raised the flame of a match to his cigarette. He had drawn three puffs when a police car slid to a stop in front of him. At the wheel sat a uniformed driver and in the back seat was hunched a bulky figure in plain clothes.

  Bellamy flicked his spent match into the roadway, bent down to twist the door handle and jack-knifed into the rear seat. The car slid away from the kerb.

  “Good-evening, Sergeant. Did you exercise your undoubted charms on the young lady?”

  Chief Superintendent O’Day weighed sixteen stone, most of which was bone and muscle. He had at one time been heavy-weight boxing champion of the Metropolitan Police. He was as tough, mentally and physically, as a rawhide knout and as cynical as they come. Yet he was not completely unlikeable and his faintly Irish accent took the sting out of his harshest remarks.

  “I exercised them, yes, sir, but I didn’t get very far. I’m seeing her again, though.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight.”

  “Where?”

  “At my place.” Bellamy noticed the expression on O’Day’s face. “Don’t worry. She’ll turn up this time.”

  “And you think she’ll talk?”

  “Yes, I do, sir. She’s frightened.”

  “Well, I hope you’re right. None of the other girls will say a word. They’re scared to death of the bastard. I wish I could persuade them that they’re none of them safe till we can get him inside.”

  The area round Notting Hill Gate, where Bellamy had his flat, did not settle down until near dawn. Police cars moved continually in and out of the garage beside the station in Ladbroke Road and almost every quarter of an hour there came the clang of a bell as an ambulance rushed to some car collision or punch-up. Even from Ladbroke Road he could hear the steady murmur of traffic on Holland Park Avenue.

  He had arrived home at about ten minutes to one. He left the door leading from the street to the front hall unlocked so that Della could walk straight in, and he put a shoe in the door to his flat so that he could hear anyone moving on the stairs. He wasn’t expecting her much before half past one, and filled in time by making himself a cup of coffee and writing up a draft of the report on the ring of drug pushers he had pulled in that afternoon.

  As a member of the Vice Squad Bellamy was no prude. He could not afford to be. In the world where he moved strippers were a paragon of virtue. He’d known Della for a couple of years. She had given him one or two useful tips that had put him onto small crimes and she had paid more than one social visit to his flat. With her blonde hair, small rose-petal mouth and round innocent eyes she looked a little bit as if she had just run away from the sixth form at some ultra-respectable girls’ school. She had a strong sense of humour which was sometimes a danger to her status as a stripper, for she had a tendency suddenly to see the ridiculous side of what she was doing and burst into uncontrollable giggles. Bellamy had grown quite to like her but just lately she had begun to avoid him like the plague. He knew why. She had information that he wanted and she was frightened to talk.

  It was almost half past one when he heard a taxi stop at the upper end of the lane to deposit a fare. The door banged and the engine revved as the cab drove away. The patter of her shoes, loose on the heels and slapping against the stones of the pavement, echoed between the houses of the narrow street. He pulled the curtains aside and saw her down below, glancing fearfully over her shoulder as if she were afraid that even here she might be followed. He moved out onto the landing. Leaning over the banisters he could see the front door.

  Several seconds passed before the handle was turned and the door was pushed open. Della took two steps into the hall and stopped. Either she was dead tired or in a daze.

  Bellamy called softly: “Come on up.”

  She raised her head to him. Her mouth was open and in her eyes was an expression of utter astonishment.

  “Della! What is it? What’s the matter?”

  Her lower jaw moved up and down. There was something she wanted to say but the word would not come out. She half raised one hand as if begging him to support her. Then her eyeballs rolled up and she pitched forward on her face. There was something awfully final about the slap of her inert body as it hit the linoleum.

  Bellamy lunged down the stairs four at a time. Not till he was in the hall and kneeling beside her did he see the handle of the knife sticking out of her back.

  At the end of the road there was the slam of a car door and the throaty roar of a fiercely accelerating engine.

  Soho is world famous. Visitors to the Metropolis, whether from the provinces or foreign countries, inevitably head for Soho when they want to sample the sexy side of swinging London. Soho is unique. In no other capital in the world do you find some of the best and most fashionable restaurants rubbing shoulders so amicably with brothels and strip joints, or successful men escorting well-dressed women so equably through streets populated by pimps, prostitutes and racketeers. It is a democracy of morals.

  But for the more subtle, less professionally organised kind of sex you have to move a bit f
arther out. The club complex has spread its tentacles out along the Finchley Road, down the Bayswater Road and, of course, into Chelsea. Perhaps the most artful and imaginative exploitations of Man’s urge to perpetuate his species are to be found within a stone’s throw of the King’s Road.

  The telephone number of Ingrid’s flat was not to be found on any of the little cards displayed outside the less reputable newsagents. She never bent her gaze on any man in the street, or so much as turned her head in response to a wolf whistle. There was no standing just inside a lighted doorway for Ingrid, taking a chance on whatever might loom out of the night. Very occasionally she might be found in one of the more luxurious gambling clubs, keeping a weather eye on any lone man who was winning heavily. Usually, however, her ‘friends’ were arranged by the owner of the furnished flat in which she lived, or rather by his agent. ‘Mr King’, as he was known to all his girls, kept himself in the background. To try and find out too much about him was not a guarantee of continued health, wealth or beauty.

  So while Ingrid sat chain-smoking in a dark corner at the back of the ‘El Sombrero’ coffee bar she kept her eyes fixed rigidly ahead, avoiding the glances of several young men who kept looking hopefully in her direction. She would have ducked out of this rendezvous if she could, but she had not dared. Her labour permit was due for renewal in a couple of weeks.

  It was ten to three before Bellamy walked into the coffee bar and with seeming casualness strolled over to her table. He threw his hat down on the seat and slid in opposite her.

  “You’re over half an hour late,” Ingrid told him. “I was just making up my mind to leave.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “You told me quarter past two – sharp.”

  Bellamy was pulling out his cigarettes and signalling to the girl who was on duty as waitress.

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, I cannot stay long. They are expecting me back at the shop.”

  “They’ll wait.” Bellamy glanced over his shoulder at the waitress. “Large black coffee, please.”