by Jill McGown
“Were you out of the restaurant at all last night?”
“Not me, no, but some of the staff would be—taking out the wastebins, and probably nipping out for a smoke. But they would stay in the yard, I expect. They wouldn’t actually go out onto the street unless they had to get something from a car.”
“Someone will probably be here this evening to have a word with them,” said Judy. “If you could let me know who was working last night, that would be a help.”
“Sure.”
“And maybe a list of customers?”
“Well, we do a lot of passing trade, but a few people booked. I can give you their names and telephone numbers.”
Oh, well, she thought. Her day might have begun with an early morning call from Yardley, but at least it was warm and sunny, and the first member of the public with whom she had had dealings had proved to be friendly and helpful. She couldn’t ask for much more than that.
Grace had told Stephen about their altered status, and Tony was now having lunch with both of them, in Grace’s dining room, as proof.
She had been so frightened, so suspicious, so ready to call the police, that Tony hadn’t known what else to do. He had waited for what seemed like an age in the sitting room while she and Jack doubtless held a conference about how to proceed before coming down and joining him. After he’d offered his explanation to them, and suggested the midnight celebration of Stephen’s birthday, she had seemed to become slightly less wary. But when Stephen had gone up to his room, she had asked him again to explain to her how he could pinpoint where a murder was going to take place when it was obvious that the police couldn’t.
He was tempted to say that it was because he was considerably brighter than anyone on the police force, but thought that wouldn’t go down too well. Instead he pointed out that unlike the police he had only one problem to think about, and that he was perfectly capable of thinking about it and working on it to the exclusion of everything else, including, in the case of the South Coast murders, his marriage.
He had told her then about that single-minded, obsessive investigation into the South Coast murders, and how his behavior had been so suspicious that Challenger had managed to get a court order stopping him going anywhere near him, basically on the grounds that he was barking mad. He had explained exactly how he had worked out who Challenger’s next victim would be, and how he had stalked her instead, thereby saving her life. He had done the same thing then, he’d said. He had put himself in Challenger’s mind.
He had talked for hours, and sometimes it seemed that he was winning, but then the suspicion would come back into her eyes, and he would get nervous again. The lowish profile that he had enjoyed for the last decade, doing TV series shown on minority channels, had suddenly become a high profile; he was still not someone that people recognized in the street, but the papers certainly knew who he was, and his name was one that everyone now knew. Being asked to leave his temporary lodgings would be something that his fellow journalists would find highly diverting, and his landlady calling the police and accusing him of being the Anonymous Assassin—an epithet chosen by his very own newspaper, and used by all the other tabloids—was something that didn’t bear thinking about. Desperate measures were required.
It wasn’t as if he had never betrayed his intellect before; he had betrayed it when he had accepted the huge sum of money offered to him by the paper for his story. He had betrayed it again when he had agreed to write the column, using the overheated prose and shameless hyperbole favored by its owner, and therefore by its editor. He had never betrayed his principles, but that was mainly because he wasn’t at all sure he had any, so the fact that Grace’s only son was someone he believed to be a murderer with whom he was engaged in a duel was no stumbling block to what he intended doing.
He had gradually raised the charm level to maximum, the anecdote rate to high, the self-mockery to full volume, and with the single-mindedness that had got him where he was, had worked on her until the suspicion had turned to mere doubt, and the doubt to a smiling acceptance of her overreaction.
The smiles had turned to kisses, and the kisses to a night of passion—albeit a short one, given how long the overture had taken, and the fact that they both had things to do in the morning. And he had to admit that as sacrifices went, having sex with Grace was one of the more enjoyable ones.
Having lunch with her son in his current mood was not, especially since there was now no doubt at all in Tony’s mind that he had witnessed Stephen Halliday murdering Wilma Fenton.
They had come into the incident room in dribs and drabs throughout the morning, but the trickle seemed to have dried up, and of the ones who had come in, two had asked what they were selling, and one had asked for directions. So far, none of them seemed to have had any useful information, but at this stage you never really knew what would turn out to be useful.
Gary was looking idly out of the plate-glass window at the casino opposite, wondering if Stephen Halliday really was the Anonymous Assassin. Apparently, he’d been working in Barton last night, and DI Finch had gone over to Stoke Weston to interview him yet again.
“Do you think anyone’s thought of relieving us for lunch, Sarge?” he asked.
“I doubt it,” said Hitchin. “I think it’ll be thee and me until further notice. That’s why I’ve brought sandwiches. See? Experience tells.”
“Do you mind if I go and—” Gary broke off as he saw a familiar figure passing the front of the building. She wore a man’s raincoat, two sizes too big, over a tweed skirt and a cotton shirt. She wore socks and boots. Her gray hair was swept back from her face, and fell straight to her shoulders. It was Dirty Gertie. She pushed a pram that contained her other clothes; unlike some, Gertie washed both herself and her clothes whenever and wherever she could, which made her nickname a little cruel, but Gary thought it had perhaps referred to her morals rather than her cleanliness. Not anymore—Gertie was too old to earn any money that way. But she didn’t beg; she lived on her old age pension. And she wasn’t, technically, homeless; she had an address to which she had occasionally been taken, but from which she always fled at the first opportunity.
“Gertie!” he called, getting up from the desk, and going out to catch her before she walked briskly past. Gertie always walked briskly, as though she had somewhere to go and despite being permanently sozzled. Drinking was so much a way of life that she needed alcohol to function.
She frowned, and pulled her head back slightly to look at him. “I know you,” she said.
“It’s Gary.”
“Gary,” she said, the frown deepening. “Gary.”
“Yeah—don’t you remember? PC49, you called me, but I think maybe you called everyone that. I used to give you your wake-up call. About two years ago?”
“Years,” she repeated, in a faraway tone. “Years mean nothing to me, Gary.”
She spoke like a dame of the British theater, with perfect vowels and no dropped consonants, and only the faintest slurring of speech, except now and then, when a word proved to be too difficult.
Her address was a posh one, Gary knew; she came from a long line of wealthy aristocrats. Apparently, when she had first appeared in Barton about ten years ago and had told stories of her father being the younger son of an earl, everyone had assumed that she was fantasizing, but she wasn’t. And the family, regardless of its makeup at any given time, always took her in if she was taken back to them. But she wouldn’t take their money, and she wouldn’t accept any help for her alcoholism or her other problems. No doctors or priests for Gertie.
“Do you still sleep round the back of the restaurant?”
“I do.” She swayed slightly.
“Will you come in and talk to me and my sergeant for a little while?”
She looked in the open door at DS Hitchin. “A sergeant? That’s good. That’s very good.”
“What is?”
“He’s black. That’s good.”
“Is it?”
“Once, you know, Gary, once they wouldn’t have made a black man sergeant.”
“No? It makes no difference these days.”
She smiled. “Good. I never held with it myself. Skin comes in different colors—like hair. And eyes. And cats.”
“So does that mean you’ll come in and talk to us?”
She went in, pram first, and swayed in front of Hitchin.
“This is Gertie, Sarge,” said Gary. “Sergeant Hitchin,” he said to Gertie.
“Call me John.” Hitchin smiled at her. “Could I have your last name, please?”
“Hatton, née Gore. My husband left me—do you blame him? But I kept the name. Gore has such unpleasant connotations, don’t you think?”
“Would you like to take a seat, Mrs. Hatton?”
Gertie sat down on one of the plastic chairs, and looked hazily at Gary. “How do I know you’re policemen?” she said. “Neither of you is in uniform. You might be conmen.”
Gary and Hitchin took out their IDs, and Gary took them to her. She tilted her head back to look at them. “That,” she said, “doesn’t do you justice, John. You’re a much more handsome man than that would suggest.”
“Thank you.”
His did do him justice, Gary supposed. Oh, well. He’d never claimed any sort of position in the handsome stakes. He sat beside her. “Would you like a cup of tea?”
“Thank you, dear, but I don’t think I have the time.”
“Oh, surely you’ve got time for tea, Mrs. Hatton,” said Hitchin. “Gary was just going to put the kettle on, weren’t you, Gary?”
She smiled. “Oh, well, if you insist. Thank you.”
Gary switched on the kettle, and put a tea bag in a mug. “Did you hear what happened to Davy?” he asked.
“Ah, yes, tragic. Tragic—he couldn’t have been more than forty-five. Why not me? That’s what I asked myself. I’m old. I’m disp—” There followed an attempt that was a cross between disposable and dispensable, then she gave up on that. “Well, I’m old, anyway. Two spoonfuls of sugar, dear.”
“You’re not old,” said Gary. “How old are you?”
“Oh, darling, how should I know?” She held up her hand, her forefinger extended. “But I can give you a clue. I was named after Gertrude Lawrence—now, she was at her height in the late twenties and early thirties—so you can work it out. I think I must be past my three score and ten, don’t you?” She clasped her hands, and looked blissfully at Gary. “Oh, I remember . . .” she began, then frowned. “What was I talking about?”
“Davy.”
“Tragic.”
“Did you see him last night?” Gary brought the tea over, dragging with him the small table with the posters on it, so Gertie didn’t have to hold on to a hot mug for any longer than was necessary.
“No. I wouldn’t, you see, because I retire even earlier than he does. Thank you, darling. That’s lovely.” She picked up the mug, and blew gently at the steam. “And he never joins the rest of us in the evening.”
Gary loved the image of the country house that her language conjured up. “Did you see or hear anything?” he asked. “Anything unusual?”
She nodded slowly. “I saw something very unusual,” she said.
Gary and the sergeant waited, but she sipped her tea, and didn’t seem to be going to say anything else. Please, please, thought Gary, please don’t let her have forgotten what she’s saying.
“What?” he asked. “What did you see that was so unusual?”
She put the mug down, and leaned forward, her eyes glazing slightly. “I saw someone in a DJ rummaging in one of the bins—at least that’s what it looked like.”
Gary’s mouth had gone dry. “Someone in a DJ?” he repeated, to make certain he had heard correctly.
“Dinner jacket, dear. Dinner jacket. A tuxedo, if you prefer.”
“Yes. Could—could it maybe have been a tramp? Wearing someone’s castoff? Looking for food?”
“No, no, darling. A dinner jacket, bow tie, shirt, shiny shoes—the lot. All black—or at least very dark. Could have been navy or gray. Except the shirt. It was white. He was a regular size—not fat, not thin—a proper manly bearing. And he was wearing gloves—odd, I thought, on such a warm night.”
“Can you describe his face, Mrs. Hatton?” asked the sergeant.
“Sadly, no.”
“Anything you can remember.”
“I’ve told you what I remember.”
“Was he black or white, for instance?”
“I don’t know, dear. I couldn’t see his face. And he wore gloves, as I said.”
Gary took over again. Hitchin was too polite. “Gertie—how could you see exactly what he was wearing, and not be able to see his face? Was he wearing a mask?”
“I wouldn’t know, Gary, darling. I couldn’t see his head.”
The headless assassin? That would sell some newspapers. Gary looked baffled.
“If you go and lie down where I sleep, you’ll see.”
Gary decided to leave the practical demonstration as a last resort. “Can you explain to me where you sleep?”
“I sleep under the canopy thing.”
Canopy thing, canopy thing . . . Gary couldn’t think what the canopy thing was. He couldn’t remember a canopy thing, and he hadn’t actually been to the scene—he should go there and get the lay of the land. But not literally.
“It’s a sort of roof thing that someone had built on not long ago. It slopes right down.” Gertie held her arm at a forty-five-degree angle. “So they can store things outside without them getting wet.”
Gary was beginning to get the picture.
“And I sleep under it on the same principle.” She repeated the last word to make sure she’d got it right. “I’m the oldest resident, you see. So I got first choice. And when people come into the court, I can only see them from here down.” Her outstretched hand went to her throat. “Unless they’re very small indeed.”
Gary smiled. “Well, at least we know that he isn’t very small.”
She looked at him unsteadily. “Is it important?”
“It could be very important. Did you see where he came from?”
“He came from Ladysmith Avenue, where Davy sleeps.”
“Which bin did he go to?” asked Hitchin.
“The big one on the corner, right beside where I sleep.”
Gary didn’t know if that was the one where they’d found the knife, but judging from Hitchin’s expression, it was. Damn the canopy. Gertie would have described him perfectly if she’d seen his face.
“Can you remember what kind of bow tie it was? Was it a normal one, or one of these that’s practically hidden inside the collar?”
“A normal one. But it looked too neat to be a real one. A clip-on one, I’d say.”
“And could you see what he did after he left the bin? Where he went?”
“He went back the way he had come, got into a car, and drove off.”
“Which way? Toward Mafeking Road or away from it?”
“Toward Mafeking Road.”
“Did you hear the car arrive?” asked Hitchin.
“No.”
“Do you know what sort of car it was?”
“Oh, no, darling. I don’t know cars.”
“Did you notice what color it was?”
“No. All the cars look the same color in the streetlights. A sort of dark color.”
“That’s great, Gertie,” said Gary. “You’re being a big help. Did you see any of the number?”
“No.”
“Not even a letter?”
“Nothing.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry. But the eyes aren’t what they once were.”
“Do you know when you saw this man?” asked Hitchin.
“Time . . .” She lifted her shoulder in a shrug, her hands, upturned, held out in a gesture of helplessness.
“Was it long after you retired?”
“Mm . . . yes. I think something woke me. That could have been his c
ar arriving, I suppose. But I do wake up from time to time anyway. And I don’t know when it was.”
“Oh, well,” said Gary, “never mind.”
“And,” she said, drawing the word out to command their attention, “I heard something unusual, too. Some time after I saw the man at the bin. I heard this . . . clicking noise.”
“Clicking noise?” said Hitchin.
“Click, click, click. It was quiet, but I could hear it.”
Gary and Hitchin exchanged baffled looks.
“I didn’t imagine it—there’s nothing wrong with my ears. It was coming from Ladysmith Avenue, too.”
“What did you think it was?” asked Hitchin.
Gertie looked at him sorrowfully. “A clicking noise,” she said.
Gary wasn’t sure what to ask about that. “How long did it go on for?” was what he came up with.
“A few moments, then it stopped and started again.”
“Had you ever heard it before?”
“No. That’s why it was unusual. Then it just . . . faded away.” She shrugged. “That’s it,” she said. “I slept then till the police came and told us about Davy.”
Hitchin stood up, and came round to where Gertie sat. “Well, thank you very much for coming in, Mrs. Hatton.” He held out a statement form. “While you were talking, I took the liberty of writing down what you’ve told us. Would you mind reading it, and if you agree that I’ve got it right, could you sign it?”
She looked at him for some moments, as she processed all those words. “Certainly,” she said.
As she read her statement, Hitchin went into his briefcase, and took out some cling film–wrapped sandwiches.
Gertie looked up. “Oh, John,” she said. “Spelling, dear. I think you’ll find that ‘rummaging’ has two m's.”
“Sorry,” said Hitchin, making the correction. “If you could initial that?” he said.
Gertie stood up, put the statement on the desk, initialled the correction, and signed her name with a flourish. “There you are. No more spelling errors.”
“Thank you. One more thing, Mrs. Hatton,” Hitchin said. “I’ve got these sandwiches, and they’re going to go to waste, because I’ve been invited out to lunch, and Gary says he doesn’t like ham and tomato. Could you use them, do you think?”
