A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [192]
Harry Brown had put forward the suggestion that one of the men at the building site where Dan Reynolds worked might have something to do with Fifi’s abduction, and Roper had checked some of the men out. Charles Bovey, better known as Chas, didn’t have a criminal record, but he was a well-known thug. And there were two complaints on record that he had sexually assaulted young girls, but in both cases the complaint had been withdrawn. Roper hadn’t felt able to pull him in for questioning because there had been nothing concrete to tie him into Fifi’s disappearance.
‘Does Chas Bovey drive a black Daimler?’ he asked almost in a conversational manner. He knew perfectly well that Chas had a green Consul, but two separate people had claimed to have seen a black Daimler in the street on a couple of Friday nights and he hoped to get the name of the owner.
Alfie shook his head. ‘No, he’s got a Consul.’
Roper feigned surprise. ‘Molly said it was a Daimler!’
‘She wouldn’t know a Morris Minor from an’earse,’ Alfie said with a wolfish grin. He didn’t even seem to be aware that he’d admitted being part of crimes that were beyond the pale. ‘Maybe she’s got mixed up with Trueman’s mate, Tony Lubrano,’e’s got a Daimler, she were always asking’im to take’er up West in it.’
Both police officers pricked up their ears at the name Tony Lubrano. Like Trueman, he ran several shady businesses in Soho and was another man they’d been taking a keen interest in for several years.
‘You could be right there, Alfie,’ Wallis chimed in, lying with as much flair as Roper. ‘Molly was talking about Tony being there that night, and we thought she said you went off in his car.’
‘Yeah,’e was there all right, but not’is car. We went in the Consul.’
‘When did this happen, Alfie?’ Roper said.
Alfie looked at him suspiciously. ‘Didn’t Molly tell you that an’ all?’
Roper gulped. He had started to think Alfie was a complete fool, and that was a mistake, for what he lacked in real brains, he made up for in low cunning. He had to keep the man sweet for a little longer, until he’d signed a statement.
‘She did, but as she’s lied about mostly everything, I just wanted you to confirm it,’ Roper said in honeyed tones. ‘My God, Alfie, I feel for you, she’s trying to lay all this on to you. What on earth did you do to her to make her turn against you? I always thought you were rock solid.’
‘I dunno.’ Alfie shook his head sadly. ‘But I ain’t gonna let’er blame me for all this. The gloves are off now. I ain’t even begun to tell you yet what she can be like.’
Roper felt that he’d had more than enough for one day. He was sickened in a way he’d never been in his whole career as a policeman. The lad who died in such a brutal and horrific manner would probably turn out to be some young kid turned loose from a care home without any supervision. Unloved from birth, and with no one to mourn him now he was gone. And those other youngsters, what had happened to them after their ordeal? He could bet it had marked them for life.
But Roper couldn’t stop now. They still needed the finer details, names and dates, to ensure Trueman, Alfie and Molly would never walk free, and the other men involved could be brought in and charged. He just hoped he could get through it without throwing up.
Two hours later, once outside the prison gates, the two policemen lit up cigarettes and stood silently for a moment gathering themselves.
They felt they had the truth at last, and a statement to go with it, but what they’d heard had disturbed and revolted them so badly they could barely look at each other. Wallis had said as they came away from Alfie that he doubted he’d ever be able to walk down Dale Street again without seeing the hideous images of what went on in number 11.
‘I think it’s time for me to retire,’ Roper sighed. ‘It just gets worse all the time. When I joined the force we nicked men that