by Lynne Truss
‘Perhaps it is black-and-white pattern und the presence of a policeman!’ she said. ‘But perhaps one other element also. Perhaps a word, yes? So to sum up, there are three triggers. One: pattern. Two: policeman. Three: a word. Ein, zwei, drei – and he sneps!’
‘Please don’t say snap again.’
Ignoring him, she chewed her lip thoughtfully; and slowly a smile of triumph lit up her face. ‘It is perfect, but I must discover third trigger.’
While she turned over the implications in her mind, she barely noticed that the governor had dropped down to his knees and was beginning to untie the laces of her shoes.
‘Herr Gerald? What you do?’
‘Please let me. Please. Your feet are so small. And your shoes are so – they’re so practical.’
‘Very well. But I must see Mr Chow-tza today, Herr Gerald. And since you ask me, my first name is Carlotta.’
‘Carlotta?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Carlotta, I must tell you something. I love you.’
‘I know.’ She laughed. ‘You fall in love with me the first time I walk in room! It is not first time this happen to me. But no more talk of terminating visits. No more talk of Dresden shepherdess also! We are on brink. On brink. You understand?’
‘I think so.’
‘Like—’ She tried to think of an analogy, and smiled. ‘Like when penis is about to ejaculate, jah?’
He choked. ‘Oh, my God.’
‘What?’
‘Please don’t keep referring to my penis, Carlotta.’
‘But you love it, Gerald. Admit this. We are building and climbing, building and climbing, jah? Until we get to point and go … Beng!’
For the next few days, Miss Sibert avoided the governor, and focused on the events surrounding Chaucer’s father’s death. As usual, Chaucer was entirely – and flatly – matter-of-fact about them, and wasn’t particularly agitated when talking about the black-and-white Art Deco surroundings of the hotel room where it happened. He agreed that there had been an unusual amount of black-and-white stuff at the scene. His mother was wearing a black-and-white dress; Chaucer and his father had been playing chess; the floor was tiled in the inevitable pattern; there was even an enormous chiming black-and-white clock. And, of course, when the police broke in, they had black-and-white check trimmings on the cuffs of their uniforms. All these patterns had been splashed or smeared with his father’s bright red blood during the shoot-out that ensued. But Chaucer could describe it all without emotion, as if it had happened to someone he barely knew, or in a film he hadn’t particularly been engaged by.
One morning in the third week of interviews, Miss Sibert rose early at her flat in Bloomsbury and quickly reread all the reports of the murders, hoping for inspiration. The trouble with such reports, of course, was that they were written by stolid policemen who had no interest in (or flair for) scene-setting or dialogue. For the J. Lyons murder, for example, the report said that the victim, Constable Fry, had spoken to a waitress named Doris Fuller (aged seventeen, of Chiswick), ordering cheese on toast and a pot of tea, and that this had made Chaucer – sitting within earshot at a nearby table – grab a heavy mallet, and then a handsaw, and run mad.
Exasperated, Miss Sibert telephoned the Sloane Square branch of Lyons and asked if Doris Fuller still worked there. The manageress, who was a bit flustered, and not accustomed to talking on the phone, said in an affected posh accent that Doris had left the hemploy of J. Lyons five years ago following a hunfortunate hincident, but had left a home address in case anyone needed to contact her hurgently. Was this henquiry hurgent? Miss Sibert replied that it certainly was. Thinking quickly, she said she was calling from a solicitor’s office about a possible inheritance.
‘Oh, good for Dolly,’ said the manageress warmly (and lapsing back into her normal voice). ‘She deserves a bit of blooming good luck after all that murder malarkey!’
Address in hand, Miss Sibert set out at once to find Doris. ‘Single-minded’ would be the kind way of describing Miss Sibert – she was single-minded to the point of monomania, and it was not an appealing quality. It made her peremptory and impatient, especially when she was on any sort of mission. ‘Hogarth Street! Where?’ she barked at the dithery natives on Chiswick High Road, once outside Turnham Green tube station, and then charged off without stopping to say thank you. ‘Number twenty-nine! Where?’ she demanded of a scruffy boy in a home-made go-cart in Hogarth Street. ‘Doris Fuller, now!’ she said at the front door when Doris’s mother, wearing a bright nylon housecoat, opened it and said politely – somewhat taken aback by the sight of this small, pent-up European woman on the doorstep – ‘Hello, can I help you?’
Luckily Doris was at home. She was a sweet young woman, who had been proud of her job as a nippy at Lyons. The day of the incident had seemed unremarkable, she said, up to that moment when the young man went berserk at the policeman. It was five years ago, but she had never gone back to work with the public again. These days, she worked evenings as a telephonist at the local exchange, which was a better job anyway, if you didn’t mind saying ‘Number, please’ all the time. She had loved the training for the job, learning all the names of the exchanges and the abbreviations: RIC for Richmond, POP for Pope’s Grove in Twickenham, FRE for Fremantle at Earls Court. A friend of hers worked at the EMBerbrook exchange at Thames Ditton, and she thought the name Emberbrook was the prettiest she’d ever heard.
Unsurprisingly, Miss Sibert was impatient with all this. She just wanted to know the exact words spoken at the time of the attack, and when Doris demurred, saying that she’d rather not think about it, thank you, she had to resist an impulse to grab the girl and shake her.
‘Why do you care so much?’ Doris asked. It was a good question, which Miss Sibert was unwilling to answer. How could she explain what was in it for her if she got to the bottom of Geoffrey Chaucer’s mania?
Doris’s mum brought the tea things on a tray into the little front room that was reserved for the visits of strangers. She set it down on a dark-wood Utility table. ‘What’s going on?’ she said.
‘I was just saying, Mum, I don’t understand why anyone would care about that awful man. He’s a ruddy murderer and he’s behind bars. I hope he rots.’
‘I understand. But is hard to explain,’ said Miss Sibert. She opened her handbag and took out three one-pound notes. ‘I must know what happen, that’s all. I must know what happen before he kills the policeman.’
She laid the notes on the table, and pushed them towards Doris.
‘She can’t remember everything; she’s blocked a lot of it out,’ warned Doris’s mum, unable to take her eyes off the money.
‘Let me try.’ Gently, Miss Sibert took Doris’s hand. ‘Let me take you beck, Doris. Let us be calm now, and I take you beck.’
‘You’re not going to hypnotise me?’ said the young woman, frowning.
Miss Sibert’s eyes twinkled. ‘You allow this?’ she said. She added another pound note.
Doris and her mum exchanged glances. They looked at each other, and down at the money on the table, and then at the teapot (awkwardly) and then at each other again.
‘Make it guineas,’ said Doris’s mum. ‘And it’s a deal.’
So this is what happened. It is a warm and sunny day in September 1952, and J. Lyons in Sloane Square is half-full. At a quarter to two, people are eating hot lunches and drinking cups of tea; others are tucking into fancy cakes. There are small family groups in the restaurant – mostly stout aunts taking small schoolboys in blazers out for a treat – but also a number of people sitting alone: Territorial Army soldiers from the nearby barracks; neatly dressed women with library books; respectable working men on their dinner break.
One of the latter is young Geoffrey Chaucer, qualified carpenter, who is employed across the road at the Peter Jones department store. His boss hired him because he seemed so gentle and well-spoken; he could interact well with customers if required. By a stroke of bad luck,
Chaucer has with him a set of carpentry tools, fresh from being cleaned and sharpened. They are on the spare seat opposite him as he methodically cuts and eats his steak-and-kidney pie and winks occasionally at Doris, who seems like a nice girl. The jazzy black-and-white floor has no effect on him whatsoever.
Just before two o’clock, a policeman later identified as Constable Fry enters and sits at a table near to Chaucer’s. He orders a pot of tea and cheese on toast. And that’s it.
Really? Does he say nothing else? Doris, Doris, can you remember? What else does this constable say? He does say something, doesn’t he?
‘Yes, he does.’ Doris looks surprised. How could she have forgotten this? ‘He says to me, Well, you’re a nice little piece of goods.’
‘Men!’ exclaims Doris’s mum – but Miss Sibert shoots her a glance, and she says ‘Sorry’ very quietly.
‘A nice little piece of goods, that’s it. And then he pats me on the bottom, and I say, Here, you. Take your hands off me.’
‘He assault you, this policeman?’
‘No, no. It’s just a pat. It happens all the time.’
‘And does this Chow-tza man take notice of this?’
Yes, he does. Doris has never remembered this before: that it all started when she told the policeman to stop touching her. A cloud passes across Chaucer’s face and he drops his knife and fork. ‘You heard the lady,’ he says, standing up. ‘Take your hands off her, you lousy rozzer!’ People look round. There is an air of impending violence.
But it still might not happen. There’s something else before he goes nuts; there’s something else.
‘What? A sound? A car outside go beng, perhaps? Does the policeman say something to him?’
‘No.’ Doris slows her breath. She has never wanted to revisit this moment, but now that she’s there, it’s so clear!
‘The clock chimes,’ she says, at last. ‘There’s a really fancy clock in the Corner House and it strikes the hours and the quarters, you know?’
‘Yes.’
‘And it drives you mad hearing it all bloody day, I can tell you. But that’s what happened. It started to chime like Big Ben, you know – bing, bong, bing, bong?’
‘Yes? Yes?’
‘And then when it strikes the first bong for the hour – that’s when the man grabs this mallet from out of his bag and swings it at the policeman. And then the policeman hits the ground, and everyone starts screaming, and I’m shrieking, and he turns around to me and – no, no.’ Doris stops. She looks puzzled, disturbed.
‘He says something?’
‘Yes, but— Sorry, but it can’t be right, it don’t make sense. Can we stop now, please?’
But Miss Sibert is not going to stop now. ‘What does he say, Doris?’
The girl starts to cry. She looks pleadingly at her mum, but her mum can’t help.
‘He turns to me; he definitely says it to me, but it don’t make sense. He says, Run, Mummy. Run.’
Four
True to her fearsome reputation (and nature), Miss Lennon wasted no time reorganising Inspector Steine’s department. By the time Mrs Groynes threw open the door to the office next morning at half-past seven – having grudgingly manoeuvred her unwieldy urn-trolley along the corridor from the lift – the outer room was unrecognisable.
‘Oh, for crying out loud,’ she huffed.
Both desks (Twitten’s and Brunswick’s) had been pushed back from their usual positions, and Miss Lennon now sat in the dead centre of the room at a large shiny table with Twitten’s favourite typewriter set upon it. Also on her table-top were a posy vase, a telephone, and a small ornate silver picture frame containing a sepia-coloured studio photograph of two children, presumably relatives. In the far corner of the room, where Mrs Groynes usually made the tea and dished out the biscuits, was a tall wooden filing cabinet. Ominously, the tea-making equipment was nowhere to be seen. Rain pelted against the window (the weather still hadn’t let up), and the lights were on.
‘Ah, Mrs GROYNES,’ Miss Lennon said, glancing up. She was quickly sorting copies of the Police Gazette into date order, and had nearly finished. All the mail-sacks were empty, and the opened post was neatly piled. ‘There. We. ARE,’ she said, pleased. She stood up and gave her attention to the bewildered charwoman. ‘Mrs Groynes, the inspector returns this morning, so everything must to be PERFECT for his arrival. And what an IMPROVEMENT!’
She didn’t pause for a response. She seemed impervious to the shock on Mrs G’s face. ‘So I’d like a cup of tea, please, with two spoons of sugar. I’ve found a new place for you to make beverages and store your cleaning materials. I’ll show you; it’s not far. When I arrived yesterday the office felt more like a cafeteria than a place of work, and the reason was obvious: a charlady seemed to have taken up residence! You’ll understand why it was CRUCIAL to change that?
‘Now, I haven’t had a chance yet to establish your exact TERMS OF EMPLOYMENT but in my extensive experience of police stations, it is normal for charwomen to work for a maximum of four hours, not ALL DAY.’ She made a disapproving ‘tut-tut’ noise. ‘It is also normal for charwomen to service a whole floor of a station, not just the officers in ONE ROOM. Mrs Groynes, I have to inform you that being at this station ALL DAY, and devoting yourself to just ONE SMALL DEPARTMENT, is HIGHLY IRREGULAR, which is why I feel duty-bound to curtail it henceforth.’ She held out a crumpled paper bag. ‘By the way, I found these SLIPPERS and this FRILLY SATIN EYE MASK in the corner. Am I right to assume they are YOURS? I wouldn’t like to think they are SERGEANT BRUNSWICK’S!’
The phone rang on Miss Lennon’s desk. ‘Ah, excuse me,’ she said, handing the bag to Mrs Groynes and picking up the receiver. ‘Inspector Steine’s office, Miss Lennon speaking, how may I help you? … May I ask who’s calling? Could you spell that, please? … G-O-S-L-I-N-G? Like a young goose? You DO realise it’s only seven-thirty-five a.m.?’
While Miss Lennon dealt with the call, Mrs Groynes lit a Capstan and took a thoughtful drag, but otherwise didn’t move. She still had her coat and hat on. Both were still wet from her journey to work. Her handbag was over her arm. The only question was: should she walk out now, or walk out later? On the whole, walking out now was preferable: better to do it before anyone else arrived.
Having made up her mind, she took a deep breath. So this was it. She had always understood that this cosy police charlady performance couldn’t run for ever, but if she had pictured the ending at all, it was very differently, with herself dramatically unmasked as a ruthlessly clever criminal, to assorted gratifying cries of ‘Good heavens! You must be very clever!’ (Inspector Steine) and ‘Well, I knew all along, of course, but no one believed me’ (Twitten) and ‘No-o-o-o-o-o-o! ’ (Brunswick). Instead of which, here she stood, being ticked off as a lazy charwoman who had craftily extended her working hours.
It was hard to take in. Since yesterday, many of the certainties of her existence had been overturned. She had learned that Shorty was in peril, and that Barrow-Boy Cecil had been snatched; meanwhile the long-gestated top-secret Gosling’s Job was looking dicey, to say the least, what with Cecil’s sawn-off digit being posted down the tubes for her attention.
And what about her stable relationship with young Twitten? It was interesting how upset she was by the change in the constable. Why did she care so much? They weren’t friends. She had known him only three months; they were on opposite sides of the law; he was an annoying clever-clogs who had – when a whole universe of cake was open to him – panicked and chosen Dundee as his official favourite. How could she respect someone who did that? Dundee cake made everyone choke, himself included! And yet she hated the new way he had looked at her yesterday after receiving that mystery envelope of his. He’d regarded her as if he were a lost dog and she were a Wall’s pork sausage.
But when things are over, they are over.
‘Sod this for a game of soldiers,’ she said quietly, snapping shut her handbag. Her glorious police-station tea-making days were at an end
. Miss Lennon was still on the phone, taking notes, and didn’t look up.
Searching for a positive, Mrs Groynes glanced at the frilly eye mask in the paper bag. It was nice to have it back. At home she had searched for it high and low.
‘I certainly owe the cat an apology,’ she thought, as she opened the door and marched out, leaving the urn-trolley behind her.
It is ‘Mister Harold’ who finds the body of our American professor. Ever since he took over the running of the family store four years ago, the forty-three-year-old has lived on the top floor, in a large, sunny penthouse, decorated to the latest style and fitted with all the latest mod cons. It is a stunning flat, like something from the latest Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition, but with the additional benefit of spectacular views across Brighton’s rooftops, all the way to the Pavilion and the sea. Mister Harold’s beautiful new assistant, Adelaide Vine, often stands at the windows up here, looking down at all of Brighton spread before her, and is visibly moved by the sight.
‘Look at all this,’ she sighs.
The sunlight glints on her beautiful chestnut hair, and is reflected in her hazel-coloured eyes, which are shaped like almonds. Looking at her lovely face as she smiles up at him, Mister Harold often finds himself pondering, for no fathomable reason, the nuts department. Traditionally it has been open only in the run-up to Christmas, but should it perhaps become an all-year-round affair?
Because the thing is, Harold’s thoughts are always skewed towards retail opportunity: that’s just the way he is. Show him a gorgeous young woman with nut-like attributes and he thinks of brazils in heaps, and filberts and cashews, and outsized market scales, and stout brown paper bags expertly gripped in the corners, then (flick of the wrists) neatly flipped to keep them closed.
He was born into retail: it is his life’s blood. He blesses his luck that he has taken over the shop during a consumer boom, when there are massive profits to be made and the market for everything is changing fast. He loves the new spirit in advertising (‘The Best Kipper is a MacRae Kipper’; ‘Washday White without Washday Red’) and the raft of saleable British brand names: from Lion’s Head sherry to Wheatsheaf shoes; from Belgrave bedroom furniture to Burgo washing machines; Snugdown blankets to Evenglo light bulbs. His favourite brand of cigarette is Puffins, and he favours them not only because the name is clever: he is drawn to the picture on the packet of cliffs, waves and seabirds. Against all logic, the image makes him connect cigarettes with cool and bracing fresh air.
