Chapter 17 The Lamb and Flag #2
“That fucking horse,” Gammage said. “I was going to back Three Cheers, but then he convinced me Vidi Vici was a dead cert, and, sod’s law, Three Cheers won by a head.
I could have made a packet if I hadn’t listened to him.
Hired hand, that’s our Billy. Someone owes you money, you send him round to collect.
Some bloke’s tupping your missus, send Billy round to show him the error of his ways.
And he’s not above shoving someone in the river or off a building.
That ugly mug, by the way? It’s not a shrapnel scar.
He got it before the war from a razor blade in a ‘disagreement’ with a fellow rough. He was one of Mosley’s lot.”
“A Blackshirt?”
“Not that I disagreed with what old Oswald had to say—”
“Then what?” Veronica interrupted impatiently, sensing politics.
“He left.”
“Then what?”
“Came back the next day, offered me a couple of quid to tell the coppers that you were fighting with that French tart you were with.”
“And was it him who paid you to slip me a Micky Finn as well?”
“Nothing to do with me, mate.”
Flynn wouldn’t have been surprised. It would be easy enough for Gammage to sneak a few drops of chloral hydrate into a pint of Fuller’s London Pride and then fleece a wristwatch, a wallet, a signet ring from some poor dupe.
Or just hand the poor dupe over to a thug to beat up or, indeed, to set up for the killing of a Frenchwoman.
“How do we find him, this Braithwaite?”
“Search me. In a pub usually,” Gammage said. “Or the police drunk tank in Bow Street. That’s where he probably spent the night. Coppers picked him up outside here—drunk and disorderly. You were away with the fairies that night.” He was unable to suppress a smile at the memory.
“Somebody hired him?” Flynn persisted. “Who? Was it a man called Blinkhorn—Major Blinkhorn?”
“Search me. You asked for a name, I gave it to you, so what about my money?”
Flynn considered smashing his fist into Gammage’s face just for the pleasure of it, but an unperturbed Veronica said, “No problem, Mr. Gammage. Don’t worry, I’m going to pay you.
” She proceeded to scribble an IOU in her little notebook before tearing the page out and handing it to Gammage.
“There you go,” she said, pressing the paper into his unwilling hand.
“You bloody little bitch.”
“Succinct, that’s what I call that,” she said happily to Flynn as they made their way out of the pub.
—
Flynn reasoned that he couldn’t very well walk around with the Colt in his hand, so he allowed Veronica to put it back in her bag.
And he couldn’t very well walk around with her handbag, so he let her carry that.
After all, Ivy’s list of prohibitions (no coffee, alcohol or cigarettes) had not included guns.
Instead he carried Mrs. Betty, whose elderly little legs weren’t used to so much walking.
Like the dove, she was heavier than she looked.
They were all three relieved when they were back in Romilly Street.
“Archie would have known Braithwaite from before the war, from the BUF,” Flynn said once they had settled on the sofa, with a whisky for Flynn and a bottle of lemonade for Veronica that gave her the hiccups.
“The what?”
“British Union of Fascists—like the Nazis, just not as successful.”
“So you think your Archie killed his floozy and then this Braithwaite helped him cover his tracks—made you look guilty for it?”
“It’s beginning to look like that.” (Unless he was guilty, of course. Still a possibility.) “And he must have planted that gun. I’m pretty sure it belongs to Archie, but it will be my fingerprints that are on it. Could have been Braithwaite who planted it.”
“Seems too straightforward,” Veronica said. (It didn’t seem in the least straightforward to Flynn.) “Where’s the twist?”
“The twist?”
“There’s always a twist. You should read The Hand of Fate by L.
K. Minns. There’s so many plot twists that it nearly gave me a headache.
Oh, yeah, that reminds me, we need to get rid of our fingerprints on the gun.
” She took the Colt out of her bag and used the hem of her dress to hold it while she wiped it clean with one of Flynn’s handkerchiefs, unfazed by the amount of knicker elastic she was exposing.
She swaddled the gun in the handkerchief before handing it to Flynn.
He had to admit that her assiduous reading of trashy novels was proving useful.
He should get rid of it. Drop it in the Thames perhaps, where it could add to the detritus of centuries.
He could imagine only too well the triumphant expression on Tapper’s face if he found the gun in Romilly Street.
You’re nicked! Got you bang to rights, Flynn.
(Tapper was undoubtedly a man of clichés.) For now, Flynn put the gun back in the drawer, locked the drawer and put the key in the Edward VII Coronation tea caddy.
“Promise you won’t touch that?” he said to Veronica.
“Scout’s honour.”
“You’re not a Boy Scout, Veronica. You’re not even a Girl Guide.”
“So—one question—where’s the floozy’s body? Read a book where the killer feeds his victim to pigs and they eat him all up. So no body, no crime. Maybe that’s what happened to your woman Delphy-whatshername. The pigs had her for their dinner.”
“So this killer got away with it?” Flynn asked. “In the book, I mean?”
“Well, no. He accidentally falls in the pig pen and gets eaten himself. All that’s left of him is his false teeth. Now that’s a twist. It’s called Just Desserts. Good title, eh?”
—