by Lynne Truss
The world had been opening up to her, back then. Now it is closing in, like at the end of Little Caesar with Edward G. Robinson.
‘Mother of mercy,’ she whispers to herself, dramatically, ‘is this the end of Rico? ’
And then she takes a deep breath and pulls herself together. ‘No, it bleeding isn’t, Palmeira,’ she says firmly. ‘Not by a long chalk.’
Eight
Twitten rose early the next morning (Thursday), feeling drained and peculiar. What time had Mrs Groynes left? He didn’t know. He remembered a moment of waking and whispering ‘Mrs G?’ and realising with relief that she had gone.
As he quickly washed and dressed now, he found he had a lot to think about, not least the encouraging fact that it had finally stopped raining. The image of Mrs Groynes chopped up into bits and dropped in the sea was, understandably, claiming some of his attention; also the image of the condemned prisoner dropping through a trapdoor with a noose around her neck at the dead stroke of nine. But looming larger than both by far was the image conjured by her unsettling claim: And not to alarm you, but this isn’t the first time I’ve let myself in and stood here.
However, as he began to creep downstairs, for fear of waking Mrs Thorpe, he attempted to take stock of the more salient facts. Mrs Groynes was in a bally pickle. Her position as leader of a 200-strong gang was under threat, and the man known as Barrow-Boy Cecil was missing. Her hidden enemy seemed to be au fait with her plans to rob Gosling’s Department Store. And by a tragic coincidence, she had been forced out of her cosy charlady job by the appointment of a zealous police secretary.
Why was Mrs Groynes so convinced that avenging Terence Chambers was the motive behind all this? The way she had batted aside all other suggestions was puzzling. It was true that a known associate of Chambers had reappeared on the scene (Miss Sibert); also Chambers’s right-hand man was involved (Nicky Garroway). But still, if you half-closed your eyes and surveyed the current landscape of Mrs Groynes’s life for a figure who might have a stand-out motive for destroying her, the result would be a blurry, distant, and sizeable group of London hoods, local bank managers, and bitter relatives of Middle Street Massacre victims. But in the middle of them, in sharp focus and three times bigger than everyone else, would surely stand Adelaide Vine.
Was Twitten jumping to conclusions, though? He paused on the top landing and thought about it. If Mrs Groynes couldn’t see the threat from this artful young woman, was he mistaken? Was he perhaps swayed by personal prejudice? After all, there were many things he disliked about Adelaide Vine’s behaviour, which for convenience could be boiled down to two:
her blatant manipulation of the impressionable male by cynical employment of her God-given nut-like attributes;
the way she had pointedly ignored him yesterday while fawning on Sergeant Brunswick.
But weighing heavily against these strong personal feelings were the indisputable facts confirming her as a force to be reckoned with:
she recently cozened Inspector Steine and pointed a gun at him;
she lost all four significant people in her life, including her mother, at the hands of Mrs Groynes just two months ago, so was likely to be jolly peeved;
she grew up in the long-con game – playing a part in murderous plots against several innocent women. Ergo, wickedness and deceit came as naturally to her as breathing.
He began his descent – but not for long.
‘Constable Twitten?’
He stopped on the stairs, hand to heart. Flipping hedgehogs, it was Mrs Thorpe. However hard he tried to get out of this house without waking his landlady, it never seemed to work.
‘Yes, Mrs Thorpe?’ he said, as brightly as he could. ‘Please don’t get up. I was trying ever so hard to be quiet. Perhaps it’s the boots.’
He braced himself for her appearing at the door in the usual diaphanous night attire and feathery slippers, but it seemed she was happy this morning to restrict herself to speaking through the door.
‘I forgot to tell you last night over supper, Constable. Your girlfriend Pandora called yesterday about something you sent her in the post.’
‘Oh, no. Gosh, I’m sorry. She’s not my girlfriend, actually, but I was meaning to—’
‘She seemed quite annoyed, and was threatening to tear it up and throw it away. What on earth had you sent her?’
‘Ah.’ Twitten really should have warned Pandora about the photograph. There were many things to like and admire about the former Milk Girl, but an empathetic ability to put herself in someone else’s shoes wasn’t one of them. She would not be asking, ‘Why has he sent this?’ or even, ‘Is Peregrine in trouble if he sent this?’ She would only be thinking, ‘Why has he sent this to me?’
‘If she calls again,’ he said, ‘do tell her I’d like her to keep it in safe keeping. Could you stress that please? I’ll try to make time today to explain everything to her. But if you could emphasise safe keeping, I’d be jolly grateful. And I really should make strides now, I’m afraid.’
He turned to go, but had achieved just two steps when she called after him, ‘Will you be seeing Sergeant Brunswick, do you think?’
‘Er, yes. I expect so,’ he called, freezing again mid-motion with one leg extended. ‘As you know, Mrs Thorpe, I see the sergeant every day.’
‘Well, pass on my regards.’
‘I will.’
‘Do you know if there are any desserts he particularly likes?’
Twitten tried hard not to harrumph. He really needed to get to the station. The cold-blooded murder of Professor Milhouse wasn’t going to solve itself! Plus, a large box of material sent from Broadmoor needed to be studied as a matter of urgency, given that the Brighton-wide manhunt had so far yielded no sightings of the dangerous Geoffrey Chaucer. And here he still was on the bally stairs, being expected to play Cupid? Mrs Thorpe was a lovely woman and a terrific landlady but she didn’t seem to care at all about the position she was putting him in. If her relationship with Sergeant Brunswick progressed further, there could come a morning (Twitten gripped the banister rail tightly at the thought) when he would be making his way down these stairs and the person calling to him as he passed Mrs Thorpe’s bedroom would be the bally sergeant!
But could he ignore a request for information, when he was in possession of it? He could not. He knew full well which dessert the sergeant liked best.
‘Between you and me, Mrs Thorpe,’ he said, in a confidential tone, ‘Sergeant Brunswick likes blancmange.’
‘What did you say?’ she called.
‘I said the sergeant likes blancmange!’ he called, adding volume.
There was a stunned silence from Mrs Thorpe. She had probably hoped for something sophisticated and French. (He had noticed a tattered copy of an Elizabeth David book on the little table beside her armchair last night. It had occurred to him that Brunswick should be warned.)
‘Oh. I was thinking more of Gâteau de Rochefort. Do you think he would like that? It uses shredded almonds!’
‘Well, you could try it, certainly. But pink blancmange with a thick skin on top is the key to his bally heart, Mrs Thorpe. I’ve seen Mrs Groynes’s blancmange work its magic on the sergeant on any number of occasions.’
Despite all this diverting hokey-cokey on the stairs, Twitten was still the first to arrive at the office. He had requested that everything from Professor Milhouse’s hotel room be delivered to the station, and he was just flicking through a notebook headed ‘Motivation Research: Brighton Field Observations Part One’ when Brunswick burst excitedly through the door, evidently brimming with news.
‘You know that umbrella you wouldn’t stop going on about yesterday, son?’
‘Gosh,’ said Twitten, frowning. He had been deep in thoughts of his own, and it took him a moment to catch up. ‘Ooh. You mean the unusual one with the silver handle fashioned in the shape of a buffalo head that belonged to Professor—’
‘Of course I mean that one!’
‘Sorry, sir. I
was—’
‘I only flaming found it!’
Brunswick drew up a chair and sat facing Twitten across his desk. His eyes were alight with triumph. Here was the best facet of the sergeant, in Twitten’s view: his genuine zeal to detect. In all other respects, his life as a policeman seemed to make him so miserable that Twitten had often thought of urging a career change to something more inherently uplifting, such as lighthouse-keeper. But at times like this, Brunswick positively came alive.
‘Gosh. Well done, sir.’ Twitten put down Milhouse’s notebook. ‘Where was it?’
‘Listen. Last night I was out having a pint or two at the Princess Alice and, well, I admit it – I was feeling a bit sorry for myself.’
‘That doesn’t sound like you, sir,’ said Twitten supportively. (He had recently learned that lying through one’s teeth for the sake of another person’s feelings sometimes made conversations run more smoothly. Mrs Groynes had been the source of this excellent tip.)
‘Anyway, who should come in but that Broadmoor cove.’
‘Mr Winslow?’
‘That’s it. Winslow. And, blimey, I tried to be sympathetic to that story of his, but the way he let that Sibert woman twist him round her little finger … well, I was shocked, Twitten: flaming shocked! And he’s not even embarrassed! He was putty in her hands, poor blighter.’
Twitten raised an eyebrow, but resisted making the obvious point about the sergeant’s own credulity where attractive chestnut-haired females were concerned. ‘What sort of thing did Miss Sibert get him to do for her, sir?’
‘What didn’t she get him to do for her! Listen, he only lets her interview Chaucer, on her own, for days on end.’
‘No!’
‘She gets permission to show him films!’
‘Really? Did he say which?’
‘It seems she’s dying to get to the “trigger” that makes Chaucer kill, you see, and she starts to reckon it’s – oh, I don’t know, something to do with floor patterns or crosswords or chessboards or something. She’s got an idea it’s a combination of three things: “Ein, zwei, drei,” he keeps saying. Three things that will make Chaucer go snep!’
‘Snep?’
‘That’s what he says. I assume she’s got an accent. Anyway, that’s by the by. He only takes all this nonsense seriously and gives her access to all the police files, including witness statements from the killings!’
‘He shouldn’t have done that, sir. Not without the express permission of the Home Secretary.’
‘You’re telling me. Then she even goes off and interviews some of the witnesses herself!’
‘Good heavens. Didn’t Mr Winslow receive any sort of vocational training for the job of governor, sir?’
‘He’s in love, son. He’s crazy about her rosy cheeks and the way she pins her hair up in plaits. And don’t get him started on her tiny feet! Anyway, all this time she’s plotting to spring the loony the first chance she gets. And after all that, well—! Can you believe it, he isn’t even angry with her? He’s lost his job, and his home, and his reputation, and his blooming sanity, if you ask me. But he still thinks he flaming loves her!’
Brunswick threw up his hands, in comic despair. He had really enjoyed telling this story.
‘Poor chap,’ said Twitten. ‘That’s awful. But what’s it got to do with the umbrella?’
‘Oh, right. I forgot. Winslow had it with him.’
‘No!’
‘It’s downstairs. I left it with the forensics boys. When I saw Winslow had it, I said, “Where the flaming hell did you get that?” And I was about to march him to the station, but he said he found it next to the front door at the boarding house he’s staying in, and I believed him, so I let him go.’
‘Gosh. I don’t suppose you enquired who else is staying at that particular boarding house, sir?’
Brunswick gave him a steady look. Twitten bit his lip.
‘Sorry, sir. Of course you did.’
‘Thank you, Twitten. Of course I did. And, well, this is what I wanted to tell you. I mean, you’ll never guess, you could have knocked me down with a—’
‘Was it Adelaide Vine, sir?’
‘Oh, flaming hell, Twitten!’
Brunswick harrumphed, sat back, and crossed his arms. Twitten really was the most annoying person in the world.
‘But was it, sir?’
‘Yes, it was flaming Adelaide Vine who left the umbrella by the front door of the flaming boarding house.’
‘Ha! Excellent! I knew it!’
In the J. Lyons tea room towards the top of North Street, spaced along the cosy left-hand wall, three women sat at separate small tables, each with a hot drink and a fancy cake. No one would have paid particular attention to them – although the youngest of the three had hair of a striking chestnut colour that was hard to miss. They appeared not to know one another.
The woman at the first table was quite large and stolid-looking, with greying hair: she had an upright carriage, as if she had served in the forces. Let’s call her Roberta Lennon of the Metropolitan Police. At the second table sat a rosy-faced foreign-looking woman with blonde plaits pinned up on top of her head, who for argument’s sake we will call Carlotta Sibert, Viennese émigrée, expert in extreme psychoanalytic regression techniques. And there are no prizes for guessing the identity of the third solitary female customer, sitting the furthest from the door.
As was their daily habit, after half-past eight these women had entered the restaurant individually, bringing books to occupy them. Miss Lennon was reading Peyton Place with unfeigned rapt attention, while holding a loaded forkful of creamy millefeuille; Miss Sibert, with an academic air, jotted marginal notes in her copy of Carl Jung’s Gegenwart und Zukunft, while occasionally picking up a macaroon and nibbling it in a squirrel-like manner (using both hands); meanwhile Adelaide Vine, ignoring the untouched second half of a delicious tarte au citron, seemed absorbed in The Scapegoat by Daphne du Maurier.
At a quarter to nine, Adelaide Vine stood up and brushed invisible crumbs from her turquoise raincoat. She reached into her lemon-yellow handbag and withdrew two envelopes. Passing Miss Lennon’s table, she neatly deposited one of the envelopes on its surface, where Peyton Place was swiftly placed on top of it; passing Miss Sibert’s, she deliberately dropped the second envelope on the floor, so that both women could bend down to pick it up.
‘Butterfingers!’ she laughed, as she crouched down.
‘Ha-ha!’ laughed Miss Sibert, in a friendly way.
‘We’re on for tomorrow!’ whispered Adelaide into Miss Sibert’s little pink shell of an ear.
‘Gut!’ said Miss Sibert. ‘You remember ze clock? It won’t work without—’
‘All in the letter,’ Adelaide assured her. Then, straightening herself and speaking at normal volume, she handed over the envelope, saying, with a broad beaming smile, ‘I’m so sorry, madam, is this yours?’
Back at the station, the subject under discussion was still the umbrella found by Mr Winslow, and the way it seemed to incriminate Adelaide Vine.
‘She was out at the time,’ said Brunswick, ‘but she’s definitely staying there. The landlady actually remembered her bringing the umbrella in and putting it in the hall. I can’t believe it. It means she might be involved in the murder.’
‘Yes.’
‘I just can’t flaming believe it.’
‘No, sir. You said.’
‘She’s so lovely!’
‘Yes, she is. But the thing is … ’ Twitten faltered. Mrs Groynes had told him off so many times for ‘rubbing the sergeant’s nose in it’, as she called it. Perhaps this was the sort of occasion to practise a bit of diplomacy? ‘The thing is, sir … ’ He stopped. ‘I really don’t know what to say.’
Brunswick pulled a face. ‘Yes, you do,’ he said flatly.
‘I mean, I know you felt very sorry for her yesterday when she was weeping and throwing herself at you and talking about your strong, safe hands and pretending she’d sent you
letters … ’
Brunswick winced. He had been distraught about those lost letters from Adelaide Vine. He’d had a row about it with his auntie Violet, because she’d insisted that no such items had ever been received.
‘But as you were just now implying in regard to Mr Winslow’s folly, sometimes you have to look at people clearly and judge them by their deeds rather than by their pink cheeks and attractive tiny feet. And if you remember, sir, Miss Vine did, on a previous occasion not so long ago, sort of shoot you in the leg.’
‘I know. I know.’
‘And she deceived the inspector wickedly.’
‘Yes. All right. But why would she kill the professor?’
‘Well, sir – you’re sure you don’t mind my saying?’
‘No,’ sighed Brunswick resignedly. ‘You go ahead.’
‘Well, I think I might have found the answer. I was just looking through these books of his observations, and it seems the professor was bally obsessed with her! Do you remember the women in the mantle department – you know, the coats and dresses – telling you that the professor could always guess what colour clothes the customers had been asking for on any particular day?’
Brunswick looked blank.
‘It was a very striking comment, sir.’
‘If you say so, son.’
‘Or at least I thought so at the time. Well, if you look in these notebooks, from the beginning of his observations in the store Professor Milhouse starts to note every day what colour is being worn by one particular person; and the particular person is Adelaide Vine! Look, sir.’
Twitten held up the book to show the note in Professor Milhouse’s handwriting: ‘AV Chartreuse’. Then he flipped to another page, where it said ‘AV Violet’.
‘I’d only just noticed it when you came in. Isn’t it fascinating?’
Brunswick frowned. ‘Not to me, son, no. Why would that matter to Milhouse?’
