Alibi - John Creasey

Gradually, that gloomy apprehension faded and he began to think of Maisie.

It was part of his tactics, born of experience, to go over everything he knew about a suspect before an interview. Thought of Janet faded again, Maisie took her place in his mind, and he went through a series of mental pictures from the first time he had set eyes on her in the witness box, to the time when he had seen her in the cell. There was no need to go and check the reports and his notes, he was quite sure that he recollected everything she had said and done.

At last, he reached the police station. Nixon was waiting for him, tall, lean man with a nearly bald head and large, rather prominent eyes—a sharp contrast to Coppell’s, which were small and deepset.

“Didn’t lose any time,” Nixon remarked as they shook hands. “Always on the ball, that’s my Handsome. Where are you going to interview her? Down in the cells? Or shall we bring her up here, and kid her along a bit? I daresay if she gets a glimpse of the outside world it will oil her tongue.”

“Upstairs is a good idea,” agreed Roger. “Lay on some coffee, will you, and cigarettes? I’ll go down and get her myself.”

“I’ll send a man with you,” offered Nixon. “With the caviar.”

Five minutes later, Roger saw Maisie, sitting with her legs up on the narrow bed, not putting on an act or posing. Her face was set more sombrely than he had seen it, obviously something had upset her very much. She nodded without speaking to Roger, looked surprised when she was taken upstairs, equally surprised to find coffee, cream and chocolate biscuits on a tray, and easy chairs to sit in comfort.

“Why the plush treatment?” she demanded. “Think this will make me talk more?”

“It should make you feel more like a human being,” Roger retorted.

“And less like a louse,” retorted Maisie wryly. “All right, Handsome—give me some of that coffee with a lot of milk and sugar, and I’ll tell you the solemn truth, even if you send me to jail because of it.”

She looked sombre enough to suggest that she really believed that she was about to risk imprisonment.

The man whom Nixon had sent down had a notebook and pencil in his hands.

Chapter Thirteen

SEDUCTION

Maisie took a cigarette and thrust her face forward to get a light. Roger gave her time to drink half a cup of coffee, then squared himself in his chair.

“You know that anything you say may be taken down and used in evidence, don’t you?” he said quietly.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Even with that, it’s better to let us have the truth,” he went on. “Did you lie about Rapelli being with you on Thursday night?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Were you paid to lie?”

“Yes.”

“How much did you get?”

“A hundred pounds,” she answered.

“Did you realise what a serious crime it was?”

She shrugged.

“One kind of lie is very much like another to me. What kind of sentence will I get?”

“If you go into the box next week and change your evidence, I doubt if you’ll be charged. I’m not sure in the circumstances that what you said was permissible as evidence, anyhow.”

She looked astounded more than delighted, then, gradually, excitement sparked in her eyes. She stubbed out her cigarette and finished her coffee; Roger poured her another cup.

“But that’s wonderful,” she exclaimed. “Wonderful!” Then a shadow passed over her face and she went on, “The trouble is, I may not have the hundred pounds to pay back for—for saying what I did.”

“Whom will you have to repay?” asked Roger.

For the first time, she hesitated, and he wondered whether she was in fact telling the truth, or whether this could be a deliberate attempt at deceiving him. There was absolutely no way of telling, and if she withdrew her statement she would certainly be showing earnest of her new-found honesty.

Then she said, “Mario Rapelli.”

“He was driven to exclaim, “Rapelli!”

“Yes.”

“Did he also bribe the others?”

“Yes,” said Maisie. “He paid us in advance, he said there might be trouble.”

“Did he then!” exclaimed Roger. “Then he knew in advance—”

He broke off, biting his tongue, needing to think. If Rapelli had gone to the club to kill Verdi, then the whole situation changed, took on an even greater significance.

“How—ah—how long have you known him?” he asked. He pictured the sallow, handsome face of the youth who had been in the dock and remembered how impressed he had been, how sorry he had felt for the boy.

“A few weeks,” said Maisie.

“How much did he pay in all?”

“A hundred for me and a hundred each for the others,” Maisie answered.

“Did you know what the charge would be?”

“We knew we were to say he had been with us that evening during those hours. Later when we heard what he’d done, we thought it was a great joke at first. Mario loves the guitar, and can’t bear to get even a scratch on it—” She gave a hollow laugh. “We didn’t know it was going to be so serious,” she went on. “Even I wouldn’t have agreed if I’d known there would be a murder charge. Or anyhow,” she went on with a flash of honesty, “I would have wanted at least five hundred pounds.”

“Why do you need the money?” Roger demanded.

“That’s nothing to do with the police or anyone,” Maisie retorted, so tight-lipped that he was quite sure that it would be a waste of time forcing the question. “I need a thousand, and I’m halfway there. That’s all you have to know.”

“What about the hundred pounds from the photographer yesterday?” asked Roger.

“That would have been a big help,” she admitted. “I’d have had only four hundred to go. You don’t happen to know anyone who will give or lend me five hundred quid, do you?” She was half-joking, but her eyes betrayed the fact that she was half-serious, too.

“Can’t Rachel Warrender help?” asked Roger.

There was no need for him to rub in the fact that earlier today she had talked so glowingly of Rachel, and this evening had had that violent quarrel with her. He saw Maisie frown, saw her lips tighten, and wondered whether he would get any kind of response.

At last, she said, “No.”

“Why did you quarrel tonight?”

Maisie closed her eyes, and seemed to force each word out with an effort.

“I told her I’d lied,” she said.

“You told Rachel Warrender?”

“Yes.”

“So she thought you were telling the truth in court?”

Maisie looked resentful and it was a long time before she responded, still as if she were making a great effort.

“Yes. After the police charged him, Rapelli telephoned her and asked her to help him.” Maisie took another cigarette and it quivered between her lips as Roger held the flame for her, then went on huskily, “She told him she wouldn’t at first, but then she changed her mind and came over to my place and questioned all of us. She hadn’t the slightest idea we were lying. We—er—told her all four of us were having fun and games in bed, and she was pretty disgusted, but she was certainly fooled.”

“I see,” said Roger. “Well, it was quite an alibi, even if it was phoney. Tell me, do you ever disport yourselves four to a bed?”

She threw back her head and laughed with surprising heartiness as she replied, “It has been known! We have to be hopped up, and once we are, then inhibitions go out of the window, orgies come in at the door! I think you have to be a pretty wild person, wild in sexual life, I mean, to start it, but once you do—” She broke off, letting smoke drift up past her face and considering him through it; it gave a touch of mystery and of greater sophistication to her expression. “Handsome,” she went on, still with a hint of laughter in her voice, “you’re shocked, aren’t you?”

Roger pursed his lips.

“You are,” she insisted. “I can sense it. My, my, what innocents our policemen are! No wonder so many criminals can get away with murder.” She laughed again. “We’re really quite mild, you should visit some of the Soho and Chelsea orgy-parties!”

“We do,” said Roger drily. “When we raid them. So Rapelli was so anxious to escape from the charge that he paid out two hundred pounds for you all to lie for him. How well do you know him?”

“I’ve had a night or two out with him,” Maisie answered. “You have to admit he’s a handsome type, and although he may not look it, I can tell you he’s quite a man!”

“Oh, I admit it!” said Roger. “So he paid you and the others in advance to lie, and you told Rachel you were telling the truth, she believed you and thought, with your evidence, she could get Rapelli off. Thanks, Maisie. I’ll have a little talk with him soon. Where does Fogarty come in on this?”

“Fogarty is quite a man, too,” she stated.

“And you,” said Roger, “are quite a woman.”

“That’s right,” said Maisie. “Sexual or multi-sexual or whatever the psychoanalysts call it. Did you see The Man From La Mancha?” When Roger nodded, she threw back her head, and, to Roger’s astonishment, burst into one of the songs from the show. She had a full, ringing voice and the acoustics of the cell block suited it perfectly. “One pair of arms is like another, I don’t know why, or who’s to blame. “I’ll go with you or with your brother. “It’s all the same.”

Then she stood up and with a lift of head and surge of bosom she reached a crescendo with a purity of note which made the man with them drop his ballpoint pen, brought two policemen to the foot of the cell steps and several other prisoners to the bars of their cages to hear although they could not see.

“They’re all the same . . .”

The notes echoed and re-echoed so loudly that it almost seemed as if she were still singing. Then she dropped her hands and covered her eyes with one hand, groping for her chair with the other. The last echoes faded.

“That’s me,” she said, hoarsely.

“Maisie,” asked Roger, “do you go from man to man just to make money?”

“That’s right,” she admitted.

“Won’t you tell me why you want the thousand pounds?” he almost pleaded.

“No, I will not.”

“All right.” Roger stood up. “Would you rather stay here for the weekend or would you rather go home?”

He so startled her that she stood back a pace, staring at him, her eyes widening, and for a few moments there was absolute silence in the room. Then, in a taut voice, she asked, “Would you really let me go?”

“Yes. I made the charges and I should proceed with them, but if you undertake to appear in court on Monday morning, you can go home tonight.” When she didn’t answer, he went on, “You don’t have to. I’m giving you a choice.”

In a mumbling voice, she answered at last, “I’d like to go home.”

“Right,” said Roger briskly. “As I live in Chelsea I’ll run you there on my way.” He stood up. “We’d better have a word with the superintendent before we leave.”

Nixon, far too experienced a policeman to show any surprise, went through the formalities of release, and, at Roger’s suggestion, promised to send a patrol car after them.

“Don’t want any more wild charges, do you?” he asked dryly.

Soon, they were on the way, Maisie next to Roger in front of his car, the police car a hundred yards behind. Maisie’s thigh ran warmly against Roger’s on the bench seat of his Morris and he did not know whether it was deliberate or not. She was staring straight ahead, not smoking; she had a pleasant profile; if she were not quite so plump she would be very pretty, he thought.

“Do you know Hamish Campbell?” he asked.

“No.”

“He was the man outside your door this morning.”

“I know—I saw the evening papers by the courtesy of the police! His name and photograph were there. I knew he was at the club where Rapelli hit Verdi over the head.”

“Do you know Pearson, the man who was with him?”

“No.”

“Did you know Verdi, himself?”

“No.”

“Did you know that Rapelli went to this Doon Club?”

“I knew he went to a lot of music clubs and discotheques, he was a nut on pop beat music and erotic dancing. There are a lot of nuts. Let me tell you this, Handsome, before you drop me—first right at the end here, then first left and the third house along,” she interpolated. “Rapelli and I knew each other but we weren’t in each other’s pockets. I can tell you what he’s like as a lover, but I don’t know anything else about him—not that counts, anyhow.”

Roger made (he two turns, and pulled up outside the house in which Maisie lived, one of several in a short terrace. This part of Chelsea was a strange mixture of architecture; there were a few Tudor cottages, at least one early Georgian house standing in its own grounds, and some early Victorian houses, all mixed with small blocks of modern apartments built on the sites of houses which had been bombed out of existence during the war.

Roger stopped, and leaned across her to open the door. She waited until he touched the handle, then, seizing his arm in a surprisingly tight grip, held it to her bosom. Leaning sideways and imprisoned as he was, his face a little lower than hers, Roger was acutely aware of her breath against his cheek. Maisie leaned forward, her eyes bright and mischievous, her lips parted. Suddenly she bent her head and thrust her lips against his, moving so swiftly that he had no opportunity to turn away. It was several seconds before she drew back, pushed open the car door, and thrust one leg out to the pavement.

“Handsome,” she said. “I promised you the truth and now you know it all. I don’t hate the way I earn my money. I have a very big appetite. I eat men. I could eat you. Come and see me when you’re off duty. Just give me enough time to get nice and tarted up for you. Any time. And I don’t mean as a paying guest, either. I mean just as a guest.”

She got out and slammed the door.

He sat without moving for what must have seemed a long time to the men in the patrol car. He wondered whether they could have seen anything through the rear window of his car, but their headlights had not been on and there was no street lamp near. It didn’t much matter, anyhow. He flicked his lights and almost at once one of the men got out of the car and came hurrying towards him.