Black Mail (A Johnny Black Mystery) Read online

  Black Mail

  Neville Steed

  © Neville Steed 1990

  Neville Steed has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1990 by Weidenfield and Nicolson Ltd.

  This edition published in 2016 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  For Richard, with love.

  One

  The rattle of typewriter keys woke me from my reverie. Dear Babs. Determined to keep her hand in, ready for the big time. I smiled. I could just see her bubbly curls through the frosted glass that formed the top half of the newly made partition. It still reeked of paint and I was amazed she didn’t complain of the fumes. The box I’d had made for her in my office would have been turned down even by a submarine crew. But it was all the space I had dared spare from my own already small and spartan office, if clients were to take me seriously. This time I laughed out loud.

  A second later and her blonde head was round the door. ‘Something happen, Johnny?’

  I laughed again. ‘No, nothing’s happened, Babs.’

  ‘But you laughed ...’

  I swung around in my chair and tucked my feet back under the desk. ‘Yeah. I laughed.’

  She came in, this time missing the door knob, and came up to my desk. ‘I’m glad you’re still happy, Johnny,’ she cooed softly, her voice, as always, at least fifteen years younger than she was, but nicely so.

  ‘It was more of a scoff than a laugh,’ I explained. ‘The thought of clients came into my mind.’

  She pondered on it, then said cheerily, ‘It’s only been a week.’

  ‘It’s been at least six,’ I corrected her.

  She wagged a finger. ‘Not true, Johnny. Last week you found that Siamese kitten for Mrs Oldsworthy. And two weeks before that you tracked down the yacht that went missing from the harbour outside. You know, the “Happy Wanderer”.’

  I raised my eyebrows. ‘Neither had wandered exactly far, Babs. I found the kitten only two streets away from Mrs Oldsworthy’s palatial front door and the boat had just been taken across the bay to Brixham. The two jobs together weren’t more than half a day’s work. And, what’s worse, more than half a day’s pay. I was hoping I’d find the kitten in at least Istanbul and the yacht in Cape Town harbour. Or even Sydney. Then my daily rate might have added up to more than a row of beans. No, it’s been six weeks since the one and only decent assignment.’

  ‘Worried about money, Johnny?’ She pointed back to her glazed hutch. I’ve got a little I’ve been saving ...’

  I reached forward and touched her arm. ‘Heaven forbid, Babs, but ... thanks. No, I’ve still got a little left from that Seagrave case. Enough for a few more weeks, anyway, if I’m careful. It’s not lack of money that’s irking me. You see, I didn’t exactly set up the Black Eye Detective Agency for the express purpose of finding lost pets, yachts or lost anything, for that matter. As you well know, I only took on these cases because nothing else has turned up since the Seagrave affair. And in my naive way, I thought all the publicity that case aroused might have produced something worth a damn by now.’

  ‘It will, Johnny. I know it will.’ She nodded and her Shirley Temple curls bounced prettily. How could I argue? So I changed the subject. ‘How are your driving lessons going now?’

  She suddenly preferred the desk top to my eyes. ‘Oh ... all right.’

  ‘Sure?’ I probed.

  ‘Well, it’s all been going pretty well, until ...’

  ‘Until?’

  She looked up. ‘Last evening.’

  ‘What happened last evening, Babs?’ As I was paying for her lessons, I felt I had some kind of right to know. What’s more, I had an interest in her passing her test in double-quick time, so that if need be she could help me out by driving on the odd occasion. After all, I had read enough Dashiel Hammett to suspect that any private eye worth his salt had a secretary who was as expert at the wheel as at the keyboard. Though I knew darn well that Babs would hardly be a Carraciola or Dick Seaman, I did pray that ultimately she would be able to steer her way around Devon’s comparatively empty roads a little better than she did around doorknobs.

  Her ivory cheeks changed to red like traffic lights.

  ‘I looked down to change gear and when I looked up again ...’

  ‘Yeees?’

  ‘ ... the road had gone.’

  ‘Road had gone,’ I repeated like a record.

  She nodded.

  ‘How long were you looking at the gear lever? A week?’

  She turned away. Quite rightly too.

  ‘Oh, come on, Babs. I’m sorry.’ I got up from behind my desk and came and put an arm around her polka-dotted shoulder. The short puffed sleeve crinkled under my fingers.

  ‘Not easy learning to drive. I understand. Really.’

  She dabbed her nose with a minute lace hanky she plucked from said sleeve. ‘The man was ever so nice,’ she sniffed.

  ‘Your instructor?’

  ‘No. The driver of the dray.’

  ‘The dray?’

  ‘Yes, you see he’d just put the boards down. You know, made a ramp to roll the barrels down to the pub.’

  ‘And ... ?’

  ‘Just as he was about to roll the first barrel down ...’

  ‘ ... you rolled up?’

  She pulled a face, half-way between a grin and a grimace. ‘Didn’t hit him though. Nor a barrel. The Morris wasn’t even scratched. I don’t know why my instructor got so ratty with me.’

  ‘Maybe he’s a teetotaller,’ I tried. It worked.

  She laughed. ‘He’s not very nice, anyway.’

  ‘Well, ask the driving school for another man.’

  She looked up at me, her eyes now a-brim with childish glee. ‘Can I?’

  ‘Of course you can. Instructors have to pass muster with you, as much as you have with them.’

  ‘Pass what?’

  ‘Satisfy you. Please you. Come up to scratch.’

  She put her hands to her ears. ‘Don’t say that word. That Morris Eight is brand new. I’m terrified of putting the first scrape on its mudguards.’

  ‘They’ve got cherry sticks on them, haven’t they? Aim the car by them.’

  She nodded. ‘They weren’t on my first lesson. But they were for my second.’

  My grin was cut short by that most rare of sounds. The tinkle of my old telephone. I let Babs have the pleasure of taking the receiver off the hook.

  ‘Hello. This is the Black Eye Detective Agency.’

  I was still surprised at her new telephone voice. For recently, she had developed a tone at least an octave lower than her normal delivery and with a certain drawl to it. I suspected that her regular visits to the Regal and a strong diet of Warner Brothers thrillers had played quite a part in its creation. After all, not too many private eyes’ side-kicks have voices like an English Gracie Allen.

  I could just detect the crackle of the caller. It was too light for a man and too hurried to be Tracy passing the time of day until I saw her off on her madcap Mediterranean cruise.

  ‘This afternoon?’ Babs obviously repeated, then looked at me.
‘Well, Mr Black has an urgent appointment this afternoon, but he will be free tomorrow morning. Can I ... ?’

  The crackle rose in pitch and urgency.

  ‘Who is it?’ I mouthed.

  She put her hand over the instrument.

  ‘A Miss Merrydew. She seems very anxious to see you. All upset, she sounds.’

  ‘Where does she live?’

  She took her hand off the mouthpiece. ‘Could you tell me where you live, Miss Merrydew?’

  After some more crackling, the hand was back.

  ‘Totnes,’ Babs whispered. ‘But she can’t see you there, she says. And she doesn’t want to come here.’

  ‘Where does she want to see me? And what about?’

  The questions were duly posed and, after a pause, the crackling resumed. Eventually Babs transmitted, ‘She suggests well away from Totnes and Buckfastleigh. She has a car and can get to wherever you suggest, within reason. But she says it really is very urgent. And very private.’

  ‘Perhaps I had better speak to her.’ I went over and took the phone from Babs.

  ‘Miss Merrydew. I’m Johnny Black.’

  The voice behind the crackle proved to be young and breathy and everything a damsel in distress should be.

  I went on, ‘I gather you want to see me rather urgently. Can I ask what it’s about?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Black. I just can’t discuss it over the phone. But if we could meet somewhere ... sometime soon ... very soon. I’m so frightened ... I can pay you whatever you want.’

  I liked the sound of the last bit. ‘Know Salcombe?’

  ‘A little, yes.’

  ‘Know the Riverside Hotel? It’s on the hill out of ...’

  She cut me off in her eagerness. ‘I can find it, Mr Black. When can you meet me there? Do please say it can be today.’

  ‘It can be today. I have to go to Salcombe to see a friend off on a yacht. That’s around three thirty. So I could make four thirty to five, if that suits you.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, Mr Black. I can’t tell you how relieved I am.’

  ‘Don’t bother. We’ll meet in the hotel car-park. By the way, what’s your car?’

  ‘A tiny little Fiat. The new Five Hundred model. Know it?’

  ‘I know it.’

  ‘And what’s yours?’

  ‘A La Salle.’

  ‘Sorry, could you say that again?’

  ‘Don’t worry. Just look for a big cream American coupe. Oh, and it’s got white-walls.’

  ‘White-walls?’

  ‘Tyres. You know. Black tyres with fat white rings on? Specially made to show up the red Devon mud.’

  I shouldn’t have said that. Quips and damsels in distress go together like ... well, white-walls and Devon mud. I interrupted her bemused silence. ‘But don’t worry. I’ll spot your Fiat first. See you at four thirty.’

  ‘But don’t you want to know whatI look like?’

  I thought for a moment. ‘You’re bright. No more than average height. And modern as the hour. I’ll recognize you.’

  ‘But how ... ?’ she began, but I cut in.

  ‘Simple, Miss Merrydew. If you weren’t, you couldn’t or wouldn’t be driving something as cutely modern as the baby Fiat, now would you? Now, had you said a staid old Austin Seven ...’

  I looked across the water to where the yacht glistened in its own magnificent reflection. The man in the cockpit certainly fitted Tracy’s description of him as ‘flush with money rather than youth’, and looked for all the world like a slightly younger version of Neville Chamberlain, moustache and all.

  I turned back to Tracy. ‘And his wife’s on board?’

  She laughed and the sun caught her eyes, the breeze caught her hair and I caught my breath. Hell’s bells, what was I doing bidding her goodbye, even if only for six weeks or so?

  ‘His wife is on board,’ she reaffirmed. ‘And if you’d met her, you’d know she’d put up with any hanky-panky like a headmistress with girls wearing lipstick.’ My arm suffered a delicious squeeze. ‘And anyway, my darling, you can’t imagine I would ever fall for a man like him, can you? All right, he’s up to his gunwales in lots of lovely lucre, but he’s far too old, conservative, stuffy and died in the old wool and what’s more ...’

  ‘He’s married,’ I interceded.

  She shrugged and put her lovely hands on her even lovelier hips. ‘I was going to say, my darling, that he is a close friend of my father’s. So I wouldn’t dare, now would I? Your Tracy Spencer-King isn’t that much of a screwball.’

  I looked back at the floating gin-palace. ‘I’d have preferred you to mention marriage. If only in passing.’

  She came up to me and threw her arms around my neck. ‘I’d still love you — even if you were a Mormon with six wives.’

  ‘Seven’s unlucky,’ I grinned, then out of the corner of my eye, saw a dinghy leaving the yacht.

  ‘I think they’re coming for you,’ I whispered.

  She inclined one arm to look at her watch. It brushed my ear. ‘It’s a quarter to four,’ she sighed, then hugged me tight. ‘Oh, Johnny, I don’t want to go. Why can’t I just stay with you in your cottage for two with roses round the door for ever and ever, amen?’

  We’d had this conversation a thousand times. The trouble was she only half meant it and only half of me was against it. One day I knew the halves might come together and make a glorious whole. But not yet. Not quite yet. Tracy had a lot of living to do before settling down with an impoverished ex-pilot with a kitten-finding Detective Agency. And I guess I had a lot of proving to do — for myself mainly — before I would be any good for a partner, especially one from such a privileged background as the landed Spencer-Kings. But the temptation was there. Oh Lord, the temptation was always there. At no time more than on that Salcombe riverside.

  ‘I can’t afford any secateurs yet,’ I whispered back, hoping she wouldn’t see my eyes.

  ‘Secateurs?’

  ‘For the roses.’

  She relaxed again in my arms and, damn it, I could feel every sensuous contour of her body through her fine silk blouse. That it could have been January and not July. Thick sweaters are easier to bid goodbye to — or are they?

  ‘Johnny.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Don’t stick your neck out while I’m away. Please, Johnny. The Seagrave case still gives me the shudders. Clients just aren’t worth risking lives for.’

  ‘You’ve got to have clients first.’ I had not told her about my damsel in distress. Somehow, I felt news of any such damsels might cause distress to a damsel about to leave her loved one behind. Now, had it been a man who had rung me ...

  ‘You’ll get clients soon, Johnny. Lots of them before I’m back, I’m sure.’ She pulled back in order to look me straight in the eye. ‘Now promise me you won’t take any risks — otherwise I’ll worry every minute of the night and day.’

  ‘No, you won’t, darling. I’m certain your host and hostess will keep your mind well occupied, sailing down. And once there, Monte Carlo has more than enough distractions for beautiful girls like you, more’s the pity.’

  She didn’t smile. Just put her fingers against my lips.

  ‘No, be serious, Johnny. I want you to swear you won’t stick your neck out whilst I’m away. Come on. “I promise ... “’

  I didn’t like doing it, but we were both upset enough by her imminent departure to have a row over a refusal. Besides, she couldn’t see the fingers on my left hand.

  ‘I promise ...’

  ‘... to look after myself ...’

  ‘.. to look after myself ...’

  ‘... from this day forward ...’

  I laughed. ‘... from this day forward ...’

  ‘... to preserve my own neck ‘... to preserve my own neck ...’

  ‘... at all times.’

  ‘... at all times.’

  ‘Even if ...’

  ‘Even if ...’

  ‘... all around ...’

  ‘...
all around ...’

  ‘... everyone else is losing theirs.’

  ‘... everyone else is ...’

  I was saved by the dull thud of the dinghy hitting the steps just down from where we were standing. To my relief, it was being rowed by a member of the yacht’s crew who must have been at least sixty. I prayed the rest of the matelots were equally well endowed with years. He shipped oars and asked hesitantly, ‘Miss Spencer-King?’

  ‘Tell him I’m not here,’ Tracy hissed under her breath.

  ‘She’s right here. Won’t be a moment,’ I disobeyed. ‘Unprincipled swine,’ she hissed at me once more. ‘Wonderful, outrageous, stupid, brave, infuriating, delectable, selfish swine.’

  We suddenly clasped each other, like babes in the wood, afraid of what the next moments might bring.

  ‘It’ll be hard to live up to all that,’ I murmured, trying to cheer us both up. ‘But I’ll try.’

  ‘Trying is exactly what you are, my darling.’ Then our mouths came together and made further exchange quite superfluous.

  My arm pointed back to my La Salle in the car-park above us, but the rest of my body stayed sensuously put.

  ‘I’ll go and get it, sir. Would it be the grey Rolls?’ the man said. ‘Cream,’ I ventriloquized, lips still locked to lips.

  ‘Green, sir? Green what, sir?’ I saw him look back up to the car-park. ‘Ah, the green Packard.’

  I pressed the small of Tracy’s beautiful back. It triggered enough breathing space for me to mutter, ‘Cream. Cream La Salle. Big American job with pontoon wi ...’

  But the ‘ings’ part never made it. Still, the embrace was going to have to last us both for quite a while.

  *

  By the time the yacht had slipped silently out of sight behind the trees, it was four twenty-five. I made my way up to the La Salle and checked the boot lid before driving up the hill to the Riverside Hotel. As I’d guessed, the old matelot had not fathomed the secret of its eccentric catch, which needed gradual pressure and not a slam to close it. For the old car had never been quite the same since having an argument with a charabanc which had wrenched the bodywork a little out of true. Other than that, she still looked Hollywood smart and ultra modern, despite her three and a half years of hard service, and made British cars look as if they’d come out of some Ark. Had I not bought her as an insurance write-off from an old mate, Bobby Briggs, who owned a local scrapyard, I could never have afforded such extravagant motoring. But my weaknesses, besides Tracy, embrace cars and aeroplanes and after losing my pilot’s licence on medical grounds when a pupil of mine decided he preferred to crash us both into the ground rather than perform a three-pointer, I was left with no alternative but cars. Aeroplanes now were things that flew me, rather than me them, or great birds that soared right over my head.