Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [124]
“Sorry. That can’t happen,” Barbara told her. “It’s a matter of a police investigation.”
“And this is a matter of club rules,” the lady said. “Shall I phone the club’s solicitor and have him come round? Because, my dear, that’s the only way you’re getting in this door, aside from running straight through me.”
Damn, Barbara thought. The woman gave new definition to tough old bird.
Barbara said, “Look, I’m going to be straight with you. I have serious questions to ask about one of your members and this could be a matter of murder.”
“I see.” The woman considered this, her head cocked to one side. Her hair was thick and completely white. Barbara reckoned she was wearing a wig. One didn’t get this old with all the follicles still churning. “Well, my dear,” the woman said, “when could be a matter becomes is a matter, we’ll have something to discuss. Until then, we don’t.”
That said, she stepped back and closed the door. Barbara was left on the step, realising she’d lost the battle because she’d used a bloody conditional verb.
She swore and fished a packet of Players out of her bag. She lit up and considered her next move. There had to be someone else who worked in this place, someone with information to impart: a chef, a cook, a waiter, a cleaner. Surely, the old bag didn’t run the place on her own.
She descended the steps and looked back at the building. It was perfectly shut up and forbidding, a fortress for its members’ secrets.
She glanced around. Perhaps, she thought, there was another way. A shop with a curious shop assistant inside, gaping out of the window at the well-heeled as they arrived and entered the club? A florist who made regular deliveries through the front door? A tobacconist selling members snuff or cigars? But there seemed to be nothing at all aside from a taxi rank on Portland Place, not far from BBC Broadcasting House.
She decided a taxi rank was possible. Drivers of cabs probably had their favourite routes and their favourite ranks. They’d know where the pickings were best and they’d haunt that area. If that was the case, it stood to reason that a cab driver could as easily cart a member of Twins somewhere as he could cart someone ducking out of the BBC.
She walked over to have a chat. The first three drivers in the line got her nowhere. The fourth was her lucky charm. The driver sounded like an extra from EastEnders. Barbara reckoned he spent his Sundays shouting “Pound a bowl” in the vicinity of the Brick Lane market.
He knew Lord Fairclough. He knew “most them toffs,” he said. He liked to chat to them cos it rankled ’em, it did, and he liked to see how long it’d take ’em to tell ’im to plug his mug. Fairclough was always ready for a chat, when he was alone. When someone was wif him, things was diff’rent.
The someone was with him piqued Barbara’s interest. Anyone special with him? she asked.
Oh, aye, the cab driver told her. Al’as the same bird, it was.
His wife? Barbara asked.
The cab driver guffawed.
Remember where you took him and the bird, then? she asked.
The driver smirked. He tapped his head, the repository of all knowledge including the Knowledge. He said that course he remembered cos it was al’as the same place. And, he added with a wink, the bird was a young’n.
Better and better, Barbara thought. Bernard Fairclough and a young woman always going by taxi to the same place after meeting at his club. She asked the driver if he could take her to that place now.
He glanced at the rank of taxis ahead of him and she knew what that meant. He couldn’t move off with a passenger until it was his turn or there would be hell to pay. She said she’d wait till he was at the head of the line but could he take her to the exact place and show her where Fairclough and his companion went? She showed her ID. Police business, she told him.
He said, “You got the fare?” and when she nodded, “Climb in then, darlin’. I’m your man.”
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