Free Death Watch by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles Page A

razzed. ‘They had a grand reopening on June the whatever it was, day of the battle,’ he went on, committed to his story now. ‘Gave away free drinks. We got called out twice before nine o’clock – fights in both bars. Silly buggers.’ He snorted and shook his head, and then remembered the point of the story. ‘Anyway, before that it was called The George and Dragon. It was run for years and years by a little bloke called George Benson, with the aid of his large wife and his even larger mother-in-law. Hence—’
    ‘Ah, I see!’
    ‘Some of the older locals still call it The George and Two Dragons.’ The round brown eyes rested on Slider with ruminative enquiry. ‘Are you going to follow up what Little Else said?’
    ‘Don’t you think she’s reliable?’
    Paxman scratched the curly poll between his horns. ‘She’s given us some useful stuff in the past, but she’s not getting any younger. And of course if it came to anything the CPS would never accept her as a witness.’
    Slider shrugged. ‘At the moment I’ve got nothing to lose. And circumstantially it sounds all right. It was sunny on Saturday round lunchtime, and there’s a low wall opposite The Wellington – the wall of the park – where she might sit to enjoy the sunshine. And the second-hand car lot is just up the road, virtually next door to the pub. She could have seen him go in there without changing position.’
    ‘So you’ll be having a word with Gorgeous George, then.’ Paxman smiled slowly. ‘He’s a funny bastard. You heard about his latest scam? He sells a clapped-out Japanese car to a black bloke and charges him a fancy price because he says it used to belong to Nelson Mandela. This bloke meets a friend, boasts about it – turns out the friend’s also bought a car from Gorgeous George, same story. So they go round there to sort him out. A bit of a frackass ensues, and a neighbour calls us out. I send D’Arblay, who asks what’s occurring, and Gorgeous George gives him a wide-eyed look and says, “I never said I got ’em from Nelson Mandela. I said I got ’em from the Nissan main dealer.” What a funny bastard.’ Paxman drew a beefy sigh. ‘Almost makes you believe in God.’
    Gorgeous George – Pieter George Verwoerd was the name on his well-worn passport – was in his office, for once, in his shirt sleeves, making a telephone call. It was one of those moments of sudden quiet that happen in London, when for perhaps five minutes it simply chances that no traffic passes, nor pedestrians, dogs or planes. Outside on the forecourt the used cars basked in the spring sunshine, innocent as seals on a rock; and a sparrow sitting on the roof gutter guarding a nest site said ‘Chiswick, Chiswick,’ over and over again like a demented estate agent.
    Gorgeous George looked up as Slider came in. He said abruptly into the telephone ‘I’ll call you back,’ put the receiver down, and thrust his chair back from the desk to look up at Slider from a position of complete apparent relaxation.
    He was a larger-than-life character, giving an impression of great size, though he was neither tall nor fat. His light hair waved vigorously, like someone trying to attract the attention of a friend on the opposite platform of the Circle Line tube at Bayswater. His eyes were hazel and lazily feral, his lips full, his chin firm. He had a large, healthy laugh, which revealed an inordinate number of strong white teeth. Women found him irresistible. Men found him difficult to resist. His passage through life had been littered with broken hearts and broken limbs.
    He had been a game warden in his youth, so legend had it, and had got himself out of trouble on one occasion by staring down a lion so that it gave up the idea of eating him and simply walked away. It was also said that he had worked in a slaughterhouse, where he had learned how both to subdue and to execute the unwilling with the least exertion or damage to himself.
    Both legends were in