Hell Is Too Crowded - Jack Higgins [15]
There was a door behind the counter and he moved round quickly and opened it. A small window looked out into a dark backyard and he drew the curtain and switched on the light.
The room was crammed with stock from floor to ceiling. Most of the stuff looked second-hand and he quickly found a serviceable tweed suit and selected a pair of shoes from a pile in one corner. He found the other things he needed on the shelves.
There was a basin in one corner with a mirror above it and he quickly examined himself. The face of a stranger looked out at him, skin stretched tightly over the cheekbones, hair plastered against his skull.
There was only a cold-water tap, but he stripped and washed the dirt from his body, towelling himself down briskly afterwards. The suit fitted as well as could be expected and when he was dressed, he pushed his prison garments under a pile of secondhand clothing in one corner and went back into the shop.
Evans had been right. There was a float in the till. Three pounds in ten shilling notes and two in silver. He slipped the money into his hip pocket, selected a cheap trench-coat from a rack and found a hat on one of the counters. It was a size too large, but slanted over one ear it looked presentable.
He moved across to the door and opened it. There was no sound. He locked it gently and walked away along the street at a brisk pace and the sound of the singing from the church faded into the night behind him.
The rain hammered down and he turned up his collar and paused to get cigarettes and matches from a machine. The cigarette tasted different, something to do with being free, he decided, and felt suddenly alive for the first time in months.
One advantage of working on the building extension at the prison had been the fact that it had given him a fairly good idea of the layout of the town. He walked through the empty streets in the general direction of the river, finding Club Twenty-One with surprisingly little difficulty after inquiring the way from a youth waiting on a corner for his girl.
It was situated in a cobbled street leading down to a barge dock, an old converted house on the corner of an alley. There was a cheap, neon sign over the entrance and the board said members only. Brady pushed open the door and went in.
The corridor was long and dark with dirty, brown walls and a faintly unpleasant smell. An old, white-haired man in a faded blue uniform edged with tarnished braid, sat in a glass cubicle under the stairs, reading a newspaper.
He glanced up and pale, watery eyes examined Brady dispassionately. "Members only, sir!" he said in a light colourless voice.
Brady leaned in at the window and smiled. "I'm only in town for the night. A friend of mine told me that Twenty-One was a good place to have a little fun."
"You've got to have a sponsor, sir," the old man told him. "That's the law."
Brady took out a ten shilling note and smoothed it between his fingers. "That's a real pity, especially as I'm only going to be in Manningham tonight."
The old man coughed and put down his newspaper. He pulled forward a ledger and handed Brady a pen. "Under the circumstances I can't see as how it would do any harm, sir. You'll have to pay the pound membership fee, I'm afraid."
"Happy to pay it," Brady said. He signed the book in the name of Johnson and gave the old man three ten shilling notes. "Where do I go now?"
"Top of the stairs sir. Just follow the sound of the music." Brady went up to the first floor quickly. At least he was inside. From now on he would have to play it by ear.
There was a small cloakroom at one end of the corridor and a young, badly painted girl of no more than sixteen polished her nails and looked bored.
She took Brady's coat and hat and gave him a ticket. "Is Wilma in tonight?" he said casually.
The girl nodded. "Having a drink at the bar when I was in five minutes ago."
The main room of the club had been constructed by knocking down the dividing walls of several smaller rooms. The place was crowded with tables and chairs, leaving only a postage-stamp dance