Free Flashpoint by Michael Gilbert Page B

minute. He measured the changing rooms, pacing out the distances, and entering them in his notebook. He tested the fire exit, which opened grudgingly. He even penetrated into the tiny lavatories.
    “The girls are so careless,” said Mr Carlotti. “Constantly I instruct them–”
    “Constantly they ignore your instructions,” said Benz-Fisher and made a further note.
    In the distance a bell rang. There was a thudding of feet and half a dozen girls raced along the passage, burst into the room where the two men were standing, and started to change.
    Changing involved putting on clothes rather than taking them off. During this process they ignored Mr Carlotti, but were unable to take their eyes off the visitor. His bowler hat seemed to fascinate them.
    Benz-Fisher, who had been examining them with equal interest, said, “Is one of you called Aileen?”
    The chattering stopped. A big blonde at the end of the line said, “Suppose it is.”
    Her body said twenty-five, but her face, in the unfriendly light of the changing room, said forty.
    “If your name should happen to be Aileen,” said Benz-Fisher with a winning smile, “I should like five minutes conversation with you.”
    “We’re on again in five minutes.”
    “That’s all right,” said Mr Carlotti. “Go along and have a word with the gentleman. He won’t eat you, you know.”
    “It wasn’t eating I was worrying about,” said Aileen.
    “Hurry along with you. You can use the end room.”
    When they were alone Benz-Fisher wasted no time. He said, “You’ve been seeing a lot of a man lately. I don’t know what name he’s using, but I’ll describe him.”
    Aileen said, “OK, I’ve been out with him once or twice. That’s not a crime, is it?”
    Benz-Fisher regarded her thoughtfully. Seen at close quarters and in undress there was something overpowering about Aileen. Eat her? She would have made a meal for six hungry tigers. He visualized six tigers, in a circle, licking their lips, with Aileen in the middle.
    He said, “It’s not a crime to be seen about with a man who’s wanted for questioning. But it might be an indiscretion.”
    “Questioning? Who are you, mister?”
    Benz-Fisher produced a warrant card.
    “A busy. I thought you were, the way Carlo was crawling round you. What do you want?”
    “I want this man’s address. And please don’t pretend you don’t know it.”
    “Suppose I don’t want to tell you. That’s not a crime either. Unless they’ve changed the law.”
    “If you won’t tell me,” said Benz-Fisher, “I shall close this place down. Which I have power to do. It’s broken six out of ten of the regulations. And I shall tell Mr Carlotti why I’m closing it down, and whose fault it is. I don’t think he’d be pleased.”
    “You’re a proper sod, aren’t you,” said Aileen. She said it without rancour.
    “All right. He’s calling himself Fairfax. Major Fairfax. And he’s staying at the Claygate Private Hotel. It’s behind Baron’s Court Underground. At least, that’s where he was last week. Don’t blame me if he’s moved on again.”
    “Who could possibly blame a beautiful girl like you,” said Benz-Fisher.
    Some time after he had left the club, the doorman said to Mr Carlotti, who was, in fact, his son-in-law, “Do you think he really was a whatever he said. An Inspector?”
    “No, I don’t.”
    “Then why didn’t you sling him out?”
    “Because,” said Mr Carlotti, “he had authority of some sort behind him.”
    “What did he want with Aileen?”
    “The address of one of her friends.”
    “I think we had better get rid of that girl.”
    “I have already done so,” said Mr Carlotti.

 
7
    Cedric Lyon, the senior Metropolitan Magistrate at the West London Court, looked like an old-fashioned preparatory school headmaster, and treated his mixed clientele of careless motorists, forgetful husbands, pugnacious drinkers, street traders and prostitutes in much the same way that a headmaster would