by R. N. Morris
Felix Simpkins sat up and rubbed the loose dirt from his hair. His face was as black as a coal miner’s, though streaked with paths of stark white skin.
All at once Felix’s body shook in a few short convulsions, like a cat coughing up a fur ball. He burst into tears and new streaks of white were washed away on his cheeks.
Quinn stood back and hauled him out by the boots.
The sorry spectacle stretched out on the ground was at first difficult to decipher. As Macadam had described, he was dressed in a khaki uniform, though his legs lacked puttees and his head a cap. With his teary eyes and quivering lip, he did not look much like a soldier.
He had made no effort to resist, not even scrabbled for his gun.
‘You damn well nearly killed one of my officers,’ said Quinn, with the tone of a schoolmaster chastizing a pupil.
‘You mean he’s not dead? Thank God! Oh, thank God!’ Felix began to blub again, but this time they were tears of relief.
‘Get up!’
Felix scrambled to his feet and stood with his head hung in shame.
‘You’ll be charged with attempted murder for sure, while we make up our minds what else to charge you with.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What were you thinking, you bloody fool?’
‘I … I … I’m not really in the army. I bought this from a junk shop on the Goldhawk Road. I wanted to enlist, but I couldn’t go through with it. I thought I would but I still couldn’t. So I thought if I wore the uniform it would be the next best thing. I … I … I’m sorry.’
‘Eve Cardew giving you the feather pushed you into this, I suppose?’
‘I already had the uniform. But I hadn’t worn it until she gave me the feather.’
‘You young fool. What were you doing here that day you shot my detective?’
‘I wanted to see her.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t explain it. Once, I was meant to meet her here. But I … I let her down. I failed her. Perhaps if I had met her then, when she asked me to, she would still be alive and none of this would have happened. I suppose I wanted to put things right somehow. I thought if I could find out who killed her …’
‘You were playing detective!’ cried Inchball contemptuously. ‘Fool.’
One thing was still puzzling Quinn. ‘Where did you get the gun?’
‘From the same shop. I wasn’t going to buy it but the man there persuaded me. I didn’t know it worked. I didn’t think it would actually fire. I didn’t even think I was pointing it at him. I meant to fire into the air.’
Was it plausible that the boy was such a bad shot that he had missed even when he had taken aim at the open sky? Quinn had seen more unlikely things with his own eyes.
‘But at the last minute, my hand sort of slipped.’
‘You shouldn’t have been playing with the bloody gun in the first place,’ observed Quinn sharply.
‘I thought I’d get into trouble for wearing the uniform. And for being here.’
‘Well, you would have done, but it would have been a damn sight less trouble than you’re in now.’
‘I’m just glad he’s not dead.’ Felix began to rock with sobs again.
‘Oh, do stop crying!’
‘Did you kill Eve Cardew?’ The question was fired out by Leversedge.
The young man’s look of appalled horror was enough of a denial. ‘What? No! Of course I didn’t. I loved her.’
‘It’s often the ones as say that what turn out to be the murderers,’ observed Inchball darkly.
Felix flashed a look of mute appeal towards Quinn.
Quinn shook his head as he took in the boy’s abject appearance. He was in a filthy state, that was true enough, but somehow he was not as physically ruined as Quinn might have expected. ‘How have you survived out here? What have you done for food?’
‘I … I have money.’ But there was a flicker of disingenuousness in his eyes.
‘You haven’t been to the shops like that. You would have been seen. We’d have caught you before now.’
Felix gave a sullen shrug. His face darkened, a blush colouring the skin beneath the grime.
Quinn stooped down and looked back inside the den. He brought out a shallow enamel bowl and an empty milk bottle. He gripped the bowl by a handkerchief, while he had the upturned milk bottle loosely skewered on a stick in his other hand. ‘Someone has been helping you.’
Felix was quick to deny it. ‘No!’ Too quick.
‘Who?’
‘No one. I stole the milk. From a doorstep. Sorry. I’ll pay for it.’
Quinn held out the bowl. ‘And this?’
Felix gave another shrug. ‘I found it.’ It was a child’s lie, innocent in its complete lack of plausibility and logic.
‘Take him in.’
Inchball and Willoughby grasped an arm each, vying to be the one who clapped the handcuffs on him.
‘I’ve got him, thank you, DC Willoughby.’ Inchball wasn’t just pulling rank. It was his association with Macadam that gave him the right to make the arrest.
It looked like Felix was about to turn on the waterworks again. A pout bubbled at his mouth and his voice spiked into a high whine. ‘I wasn’t trying to kill him. I didn’t know it would fire.’
‘Tell that to the jury,’ said Inchball. ‘You coming, guv?’
Quinn was staring down at the enamel bowl. It was white with a blue rim; here and there the enamel was chipped away and scratched, evidently an old bowl, one that would not be missed, perhaps. It looked as though it had been licked clean.
‘Guv?’
‘I’ll see you back at the Yard,’ said Quinn. He held the enamel bowl out to Inchball as if it contained freshly picked cherries. When Inchball approached as if to take one, Quinn withdrew it and put forward the milk bottle instead. ‘I want that dusted for fingerprints. I’ll hang on to this a little while longer, I think.’
Inchball nodded to Willoughby for him to take the milk bottle on its stick off the governor. He had his own hands full with Felix.
‘What do you want me to do?’ asked Leversedge. Quinn suspected that he was angling to tag along. Perhaps Leversedge genuinely wanted to make himself useful, or was simply curious about what Quinn was up to. But Quinn could not forget that until recently Leversedge had been Coddington’s animal, and so he could not dispel the thought that he wanted to stick with him so that he could report back to his master.
Besides, Quinn’s instinct was that he wanted to be alone.
So it was a surprise even to himself when he said, ‘You can come with me.’
FORTY-FIVE
And so Quinn found himself once again on the doorstep of the house in Wallingford Avenue. He still had hold of the enamel bowl, which created the impression that he had come round to beg for something to put in it, flour or sugar perhaps. He quickly hid it under his ulster and kept it there with his left arm held stiffly against his body.
On the way over Leversedge had shown commendable restraint. It was clear he had questions, but for some reason he preferred to keep them to himself. So the two men had fallen silently into step. Occasionally Leversedge had looked at Quinn as if he might ask a question, but thought better of it at the last moment. Perhaps he simply did not wish to show himself at a disadvantage. Alternatively, it was possible that he wanted to detach himself from whatever Quinn had in mind. The less he knew, the less culpable he was if Quinn turned out to have it spectacularly wrong. Nothing to do with me, he could always plead when Quinn was left with egg on his face. And if by some miracle Quinn succeeded in cracking the case, he was there by his side to share in the glory. It was a canny tactic; hedging his bets.
There was another possibility, of course. That Leversedge’s detachment was the studied neutrality of an observer. He was watching Quinn and making mental notes, so that he could report back to a third party. Quinn was in no doubt who that might be.
Then, at the last moment, as they were waiting for t
he door to be opened, Leversedge couldn’t help himself: ‘How do you want to play this?’
There was only one way to answer such a question. ‘Let me do all the talking.’
Before Leversedge could object, the door was opened by the same gaunt woman dressed in black who had let Quinn in last time, her hair tied up as before, though now he noticed even more of those loose strands of grey, as if her derangement had progressed from the last time he had seen her. The whites of her eyes were clearer, but the same dark rings stood out from the exceptional paleness of the rest of her face.
‘Is Pastor Cardew at home?’
‘No.’
‘Very well. May I then speak to Mrs Cardew?’
The woman’s face clouded in suspicion. ‘And who might you be?’
The question threw Quinn. ‘Do you not remember me?’
‘I have never seen you before.’
‘I came here. You let me in. I spoke to Pastor Cardew and his son, Adam.’
Quinn was aware of Leversedge’s agitated fidgeting beside him, prompted by the information that Quinn had been to the house before.
‘Ah. You are no doubt mistaking me for my sister, Gwyneth. We are twins. Identical twins.’
‘So you are Mrs Cardew?’
‘Yes. Gwyneth was good enough to take care of the house after … after what happened to Eve.’ A tremor shook her jaw. ‘Gwyneth has gone now.’
‘That’s right. You were indisposed the last time I came to the house.’
Mrs Cardew averted her eyes as if flinching away from a blow.
Quinn took off his bowler hat and bowed his head. ‘I am truly sorry for your loss. We are doing what we can.’
Mrs Cardew glared uncomprehendingly at Quinn, then turned her gaze on Leversedge. ‘You are the police?’
Leversedge, perhaps remembering Quinn’s prohibition, merely raised his eyebrows and nodded.
‘I am Detective Chief Inspector Quinn and this is Inspector Leversedge. We are investigating your daughter’s death.’
‘You arrested a man and then let him go.’ She gave the factual statement a steely, accusatory intonation.
‘He was not the murderer.’
‘Have you found the murderer now?’ There was the same uncompromising edge to her voice.
‘May we come in? I think it would be better to discuss these matters inside.’
Her eyes narrowed, then something shifted inside her, surrender perhaps, or possibly calculation. She stood aside to let them in.
Quinn had the impression that her resemblance to her sister was very close indeed. But then again, perhaps grief makes doppelgängers of us all.
The pallor of her face stayed with him even though it was turned away from him. He saw it now as a sign not of sickness, but of a kind of luminous energy. He would not go so far as to describe it as strength, but there was something thrilling – momentous, even – about it. She shone with righteous anger.
Quinn could imagine that, in happier times, she and her husband must have made a handsome couple.
She led them past the scriptural embroideries and Bible scenes, through into the same parlour where he had interviewed Pastor Cardew and Adam. The drapes were still drawn, though a fractured light spilled in from a gap in the curtains.
She gestured for them to sit down. Leversedge accepted the invitation with a solemn nod, but Quinn remained on his feet. He took his handkerchief from his pocket and produced the enamel bowl from his ulster, with what he recognized as a needless flourish. ‘Do you recognize this?’
Mrs Cardew frowned and held out her hand to take it.
‘I’m sorry. I can’t let you hold it. There may be fingerprints on it.’
‘It’s a bowl.’
‘Yes. What I am trying to establish is whether you possess such a bowl.’
‘It looks familiar, yes. I should think they are very common. I believe we bought ours from Blackley’s.’
‘Where is it?’
‘In the kitchen, I should think.’
‘Would you be so kind as to fetch it for me?’
Mrs Cardew tore herself away from the sight of Quinn as if he were some extraordinarily compelling spectacle.
They were left with the ponderous ticking of the grandfather clock hanging the heavy seconds in the air between them like an unspoken grudge.
They could hear the clattering of pots and pans from the kitchen, growing more frantic and frustrated as the minutes passed. Quinn watched the minute hand move three slow, arthritic minutes and at exactly five past twelve, Mrs Cardew came back into the room.
She was empty-handed.
‘It appears to be missing.’
‘This could be it, then?’
‘Yes, I suppose it could be. Where did you find it?’
‘The same place we found Felix Simpkins. Close to the spot where Eve was killed.’
‘Felix Simpkins? So Felix killed her? Is that what you’re saying? I don’t understand.’
Quinn did not answer. He was more interested in studying Mrs Cardew’s confusion and incredulity. She sank down on to a chair. Quinn sat opposite her to watch her face.
‘You don’t think he did?’ Quinn said at last, his voice low and throbbing with tense potential.
‘Felix? I would not have thought him capable of such a thing. Why did he do it?’
‘I have not said that he did.’
She closed her eyes, revealing to him the fine, delicate flickering of her eyelids. ‘I am tired, so tired. My thoughts are all confused. My heart aches. I cannot …’ She snapped her eyes open again, suddenly alert. ‘Do you have children?’
‘No, I—’
‘Then you cannot imagine what it is like to lose one.’
Quinn waited for her to go on. When she did not, he thought the time had come to ask the question that might destroy her. ‘Did you know that Eve was not a virgin?’
She looked him steadily in the eye and swallowed. ‘All those years. All those years, I said nothing. I refused to believe. How could it be true? But I saw the change that came over her. And the way he looked at her. Did I turn a blind eye? Is that what you will say? I turned a blind eye, as you might to a child dipping his finger into the sugar bowl? No, it was not that. I did not turn a blind eye. You don’t know what it was like. You don’t know what he is like. I tried … I tried to stop it. I tried to tell him. “It’s not right! You mustn’t! She’s your daughter!” But you don’t know him. He is … when he is there before you, he is … it’s almost as if he is divine. His faith is so powerful. It sweeps away all objections. All objections!’ Her gaze was appalled and appalling, stripped, raw, opened up like a gutted animal. Quinn could not look away.
‘He explained it to me. There is a word for it. Antinomian. Have you heard of that word?’
Quinn shook his head.
‘It is a real word. A real thing. He showed it to me in his theological dictionary. Antinomian. Antinomianism. It means that the true believer can do no wrong. Is beyond all legal and moral law. It is there in the theological dictionary. Do you wish to see it?’
‘Perhaps later.’
‘And besides, he said to me that the sin was not his, it was Eve’s. Eve was the sinner. She tempted him. And I … I … I could not listen to him. I blocked my ears and closed my eyes and I took to my bed. My head was in such pain. You cannot know. I was so weak. I could not have stood up against him. He had God on his side! I was just a weak, weak woman. We are but weak vessels filled with sin. He has explained that to me. What can we do?’
‘When Eve went missing, after the Purity Meeting at the church, both your husband and your son went out to look for her, did they not?’
She closed her eyes again and nodded, her mouth drawn into a grimace of anguish. ‘And all the time I was thinking, what has he done to her? What has he done to her? And still I said nothing.’
‘You believe your husband killed your daughter?’
‘I don’t know. But Eve … was becoming … more unpredictabl
e … wilder. She was dropping hints. She said to me once, as we were coming out of church, “I wonder what his adoring congregation would say if they knew what he was really like?” To my shame – to my shame! – I reproached her! “What on earth are you talking about, you silly girl?” Those were my very words to her. I know that he heard her. I know that he heard her say that. She threatened to ruin him. All of us. And she was the sinner. It was her sin that had caused all this.’
‘Were there others? Other girls that he …?’
Her shock at the suggestion was unfeigned. ‘I had not thought there might be others. I know that … well, the reason Gwyneth left in a hurry, I know that that was because of her sinfulness. But Gwyneth is not a child, not like Eve was. And so I never imagined …’
‘We found another girl dead. Does the name Millicent Jones mean anything to you?’
Mrs Cardew shook her head, her look of shock deepening.
‘Did she attend Sunday school at the church?’ It was a long shot, considering the dead woman’s profession. But she hadn’t always been a prostitute, he supposed. Perhaps once she’d been a little girl who said her prayers and believed in God. An innocent child corrupted by the touch of a man she should have trusted more than any other. Who knew what paths had led Millicent Jones into criminality? Or perhaps Pastor Cardew had turned to prostitutes to satisfy his lusts, veiling his sinfulness behind a mission of salvation. It was not inconceivable that Millicent Jones had gone on the game while still a child. His connection to her could have gone back years.
‘I don’t know. It’s so confusing. I have a terrible headache. I cannot think with all these questions.’
‘Where is Pastor Cardew now?’
‘He’ll be there. At the church. That’s where he said he was going.’
A sudden excitement – the chase closing in – energized Quinn. ‘Is there something here that belongs to your husband that we may take? Something that only he handles?’
‘What do you want it for?’
‘It will help us to confirm whether or not he has handled this bowl and another item we found in the same place. That may suggest that he has been helping Felix Simpkins.’
