“Bit of a shock for you, wasn’t it, this morning?” she said.
“I suppose so,” Banks said. “After all these years… I don’t know, I suppose I’d allowed myself to believe there had to be a connection. Conned myself.”
“We all do, one way or another.”
“You’re too young to be so cynical.”
“And you should be old and wise enough to realize that flattery will get you nowhere. You’ve got a bit of froth on your lip.”
Before Banks could wipe it away, Michelle reached out her finger and did it for him, her fingertip brushing his lip.
“Thanks,” he said.
Michelle blushed, turned her head away and let out a little giggle. “I don’t know why I did that,” she said. “My mother used to do it when I drank milk shakes.”
“Haven’t had a milk shake in years,” said Banks.
“Me, neither. What next?”
“Home. And you?”
“Dunno. The leads are hardly jumping out at me left, right and center.”
Banks thought for a moment. He hadn’t told Shaw about the possible Kray connection because Shaw had behaved like a bastard. Besides, it wasn’t his case. There was no reason to keep it from Michelle, though. It probably meant nothing, but at least it would give her something to do, the illusion of progress.
“I’ve heard rumors that Graham Marshall’s dad was connected with the Krays in London just before the family moved up here.”
“Connected? In what way?”
“Strong-arm man. Enforcer. I don’t know how true it is – you know how these things can be exaggerated – but it might be worth a bit of delving into.”
“How do you know this?”
Banks touched the side of his nose. “I’ve got my sources.”
“And how long have you known?”
“Just found out before I came here.”
“Yeah, and the Pope’s Jewish.”
“The point is, what are you going to do about it?”
Michelle moved the froth in her cup around with a spoon. “I don’t suppose it’d do any harm to set a few inquiries in motion. Might even get a trip to London out of it. You sure I won’t come out looking like a complete moron?”
“I can’t guarantee that. It’s always a risk. Better than being the moron who missed the vital clue, though.”
“Thanks. That’s really encouraging. I don’t know very much about the Krays – before my time. I haven’t even seen the film. I do remember the big funeral they gave one of them in the East End not so long ago, though.”
“That’d be Reggie. Couple of years ago. The whole East End came out for him. It was the same when Ronnie died in 1995. Very popular among East Enders, the Krays were. Loved their mother. There were three of them, an older brother called Charlie, but Ronnie and Reggie, the Twins, are the ones people focus on. They pretty much ran the East End during the fifties and sixties, and a fair bit of the West End, too, till they got put away. Ronnie was the crazy one. Paranoid schizophrenic. He ended up in Broadmoor. Reggie was Category ‘A’ in Parkhurst. I suppose you could say that he was led astray by his more dominant twin brother, if you wanted to be charitable.”
“But what could they have to do with Graham Marshall’s disappearance and murder?”
“Probably nothing,” Banks said. “They didn’t operate outside London much, except for maybe a few clubs in cities like Birmingham or Leicester. But if Bill Marshall did work for them, then there’s always the chance he left them reason to bear a grudge, and the twins had a long reach.”
“And for that they’d kill his son?”
“I don’t know, Michelle. These people have a very warped sense of justice. And don’t forget, Ronnie was crazy. He was a sexual sadist, a serious pervert, among other things. He was the one who walked into The Blind Beggar and shot George Cornell right between the eyes in front of a roomful of witnesses. Know what was playing on the jukebox?”
“Tell me.”
“It was The Walker Brothers, ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore.’ And they say the needle got stuck on ‘anymore’ when he was shot.”
“How melodramatic. I don’t remember The Walker Brothers.”
“Not many people do. Want me to sing you a couple of verses?”
“I thought you said you never sing to women you’ve just met?”
“I did?”
“Don’t you remember?”
“Nothing slips past you, does it?”
“Not much. I know you read Philip Larkin, too.”
“How?”
“You quoted him.”
“I’m impressed. Anyway, who knows how someone like Ronnie Kray thinks, if ‘think’ is even the right word? He was seeing enemies all around him by then and coming up with more and more dramatic ways of hurting people. He loved to inspire fear and trembling, even in his own men. He was also a homosexual with a taste for teenage boys. They wouldn’t have done Graham themselves, of course – they’d have got agoraphobia if they came this far north of London – but they could have sent someone to do it. Anyway, it’s not only that.”
“What, then?”
“If Bill Marshall did work as a strong-arm man for the Krays, what was he doing up here? You know as well as I do that people don’t just walk away from that line of work. Maybe he got himself fixed up with someone local, a branch manager.”
“So you’re saying he might have been up to the same tricks here, and that might have had something to do with Graham’s death?”
“I’m just saying it’s possible, that’s all. Worth investigating.”
“There was a reference to a protection racket in the old crime logs,” Michelle said. “Someone called Carlo Fiorino. Ring any bells?”
“Vaguely,” said Banks. “Maybe his name was in the papers when I was a kid. Anyway, it’s something to think about.”
“So why didn’t it come up in the original investigation?”
“Didn’t it?” said Banks. “Dunno. Want another coffee?”
Michelle looked into her empty cup. “Sure.”
Banks went and got two more coffees, and when he came back, Michelle was leafing through the book.
“Borrow it if you want,” he said. “I just picked it up to see if I could fill in a bit more background.”
“Thanks. I’d like to read it. Did Graham ever mention the Krays to you?”
“Yes, but I’m not sure that he ever said he or his dad knew them. I’ve also been thinking about the time frame. Graham and his parents came up here around July or August 1964. In July, there was a big brouhaha in the press over Ronnie’s alleged homosexual relationship with Lord Boothby, who denied everything and sued the Sunday Mirror for libel. Ronnie followed suit, but all he got was an apology. Still, there was an upside in that the press had to lay off the Krays for a while after that. Nobody wanted any more libel suits. One day Ronnie was a thug and a gangster, the next, a sporting gentleman. It set the police investigation back, too. Everyone had to walk on eggs around them. Even so, they were arrested the next January for demanding money with menaces. There was no bail and they were tried at the Old Bailey.”
“What happened?”
“They got off. It was a flimsy enough case to start with. There was talk of jury tampering. See, back then, there was no majority verdict like we have today. All twelve had to agree, or there’d be a retrial, which would give the accused even more time to fix things. They dug up some dirt on one of the main prosecution witnesses and that was it, they were free.”
“But how does any of this relate to Graham?”
“I’m not saying it does, only that that was what was happening around 1964 and 1965, the period we’re concerned with. The Krays were in the public eye a lot. The libel case and the trial were both big news, and after they got off they were fireproof for a long time. It was the start of their ascendancy as celebrities, the dark side of Swinging London, you might say. Soon they were being photographed with film stars, sporting figures and pop singers: Barbara Windsor, Sonny Liston, Judy Garland, Victor Spinetti – who was in A Hard Day’s Night, Help! and Magical Mystery Tour, if you can handle another piece of trivia. In the summer of 1965, they had a fiddle involving selling stolen American securities and bonds for the Mafia, and they were squaring up for a big fight with their rivals, the Richardson gang.” Banks tapped the book. “It’s all in there. I don’t know if it means anything. But as your boss made clear this morning, it’s none of my business.”