No Hearts, No Roses

by Colin Murray

  I’d already done a fair bit of that. I’d phoned Les to tell him that Beverley Beaumont was safe, but that it might be a good idea for him to check up on her. He hadn’t mentioned any damage to the Rolls. I’d phoned Inspector Rose and left a message to the effect that I was on the case. I’d even phoned Reg to apologize for not making football practice or the match. He’d harrumphed and told me they’d miss my experience, which I took to mean that he’d replaced me with someone younger and faster. I’d phoned Mrs Williams and told her to expect me later. She’d said that she looked forward to it. She’d used a term of endearment. Bernie had answered, but told me that he couldn’t talk business on the Sabbath, and so my instructions about the diamonds went unsaid.

  And now here I was, at my last port of call. No more excuses after this.

  Roger glided over to our end of the bar. I wondered if he’d ever been a dancer.

  ‘My goodness, but you’ve been in the wars,’ he said, studying the bruise.

  ‘It’s not so bad,’ I said. ‘Anyway, it’ll remind me to duck when the sign on the door tells me to mind my head,’ I said. ‘Two cognacs, and whatever you’re having.’

  ‘Too early for me, dear,’ he said. ‘Hang on to your money.’

  ‘Anyone been in?’ I said to his back as he busied himself with glasses.

  ‘If you mean young Jonathan,’ he said, ‘the answer’s no. If you mean the boys in blue asking about him, the answer’s yes.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said as he slid two glasses on to the counter and took my ten-bob note.

  ‘Came in not long after you yesterday. Poor Connie’s been interrogated within an inch of her life,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I said.

  ‘She’ll get over it. She loves it, really. All those big men with large, flat feet . . .’

  His eyes moistened and, for a moment, he went AWOL. The sound of billiard balls clacking together and a little groan of dismay from the farther room reminded him of where he was, and he grinned at me boyishly.

  I smiled wanly and took the drinks over to Ghislaine, who had chosen the same table we had sat at on our first visit. I plonked myself down next to her.

  I sipped at the brandy and wondered if Jenkins had disappeared from my life. I had the feeling that John and Andrew would encourage the police to oppose bail so – temporarily, at least – I was probably free of them. In the long run . . . But then, as someone much cleverer than me said a while back, the long run is a misleading guide in current affairs. I don’t suppose he’d had my situation in mind, but it was a thought that held good.

  Maybe I could forget about them.

  John’s interest in the diamonds might possibly prove more problematic. Especially if he prised anything out of Jenkins. Still, he probably wouldn’t. He must have bigger fish than me to fry. One or two of them might even be spies for the Russkies. I remembered all that baptized wine in Paris and the intelligence officer. He would have been amused at the idea of setting a Cambridge man to catch a Cambridge man.

  Perhaps I could forget about John as well.

  Which left the problem I was sitting next to and the one I was about to confront.

  Ghislaine sighed and lit another cigarette. She hadn’t touched her brandy and was staring off at the bar through a fug of blue-grey smoke.

  I followed her gaze and saw Emile and one of his companions standing uneasily at the bar. As soon as he noticed I’d clocked them, Emile nudged his mate, whose name I could not recall – Henri, perhaps – and they made a beeline for us. I wondered how they’d talked their way in and immediately realized that Connie would have remembered Emile and let him through, thinking he was with me.

  Henri just stood around, looking large, imposing and awkward, while Emile started talking rapidly to Ghislaine.

  The gist of it was that Robert had changed his mind. He was intending to head back to France that night and had decided that Ghislaine would accompany him. He would expect to see her at Victoria Station at six o’clock.

  I asked him what would happen if she chose not to turn up. He appeared to be amused and merely said that she would be there. Then I asked him how he’d known where to find us. He shrugged and said that Robert had telephoned Jerry and he had suggested that they try looking here. I must have looked surprised because he said, almost apologetically, that Robert could be very persuasive. I said that I remembered.

  He shook my hand and said that he’d see me soon, although I didn’t see how, and then he and Henri left.

  Ghislaine looked pale and tight-lipped, and I knew I couldn’t leave her in the bar.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  I told Ghislaine to stay in the taxi while I went inside for a minute or two. I didn’t want her with me, and I figured that the driver might actually wait if I left her as a hostage. And, of course, there’d be less chance of young Jon doing a runner if I could bundle him straight into a cab.

  Predictably, the driver objected. He couldn’t possibly park on a busy street like that, mate, could he? It didn’t look all that busy to me, but I suggested that he pull around the next corner, telling him that I’d be out in less than five minutes, and I didn’t wait for a reply, but marched smartly up the steps to the big, old door and rapped on it.

  The cab rumbled slowly off. Fortunately, although I could see the driver grumbling away, he was wasting his breath. I couldn’t hear him, and I doubted that Ghislaine could understand him. Besides, she was too lost in her own worries to concern herself with his.

  The road was warm-Saturday-afternoon quiet, the blokes all in shirtsleeves and braces digging up their allotments or snoozing in the armchair while the missus sat at the kitchen table, dunking sugary Nice biscuits in a well-earned cuppa between washing up after dinner and opening the tinned salmon for tea. A newish black Ford Popular was parked five doors along, and a few kids, a hundred yards away, squatted down on the pavement, playing marbles. Somewhere a wireless hummed a subdued melody.

  I turned back to the door and rattled the knocker again. I waited for a few seconds, but I heard nothing so I looked furtively around and, since there was no one watching me, reached into the letterbox and found the piece of string I’d seen dangling there the other day and pulled it through. It was the work of a few seconds to open the door with the key tied to the end and enter. I closed the door quietly behind me and stood in the hallway.

  It was cool, musty, dark and quiet. The house creaked and groaned a little, and somewhere a tap dripped – the steady splash, splash, splash quietly comforting – but anyone in residence remained silent and hidden.

  I stood there, tasting and smelling blood, but I knew that was just my imagination. I should be smelling bleach and other cleaning agents. The police had probably been gone for a day or two. Mrs Elvin should already have started making the room habitable again. Maybe I was wrong and there was no one here.

  But then I caught the faint smell of fried bacon and walked along the hall towards the kitchen. The sound of the dripping tap grew louder and the smell grew stronger. There was the frying pan, the bacon grease glistening and congealing, still on the gas stove. Two plates, smeared with deep-yellow egg yolk and strewn with fatty rind, and two tea cups cluttered the blue-Formica-topped table.

  I walked noisily back down the hall, opened the front door and then banged it shut, with me still on the inside, and stood quietly.

  After a few seconds, a door on the floor above me opened and bare feet pattered on the lino. Then a pair of lean, athletic legs appeared on the staircase, and there was Jonathan Harrison in grubby vest and pants.

  ‘Ah,’ he said and ran a hand through his already dishevelled hair. He yawned.

  ‘Just wanted a word,’ I said.

  ‘Didn’t hear you knock. Been asleep.’ He yawned again. ‘Do you mind if I throw some bags and a shirt on?’

  ‘Where are you sleeping these days?’ I said.

  He looked puzzled.

  ‘You’re surely not sleeping in your old room,’ I said. />
  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘No. Rose let me use, er, another room.’ He looked over his shoulder. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said, ‘I’m not overly bothered by the sight of men’s hairy legs. I see them on a football pitch every Saturday. Come on down. We’ll talk now.’

  ‘I’d rather get dressed,’ he said.

  ‘This is a come-as-you-are party. I’m sure you have them in Cambridge.’

  He didn’t move and looked uncomfortable, turning to look behind him.

  ‘I can help you come down, if you like,’ I said amiably.

  ‘No, no,’ he said quickly, looking over his shoulder again. ‘Let’s talk in the parlour. On your left.’

  He started down the stairs very slowly.

  I held the door open and ushered him into a neat, clean, little room with some comfortable, green armchairs and a light-oak sideboard with a dark wireless on it. Three green and white ducks flew across busy, floral-patterned wallpaper towards a liver-spotted mirror on the chimney breast. I pointed Jon to a chair by the fireplace, and he slumped into it. I pulled the other armchair into the middle of the room, to cut off any attempt at escape and sat in it.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ he said, staring down at his pale, muscular thighs, and spreading them a little to better reveal the impressive bulge in his underpants.

  ‘How did you fall in with Jenkins?’ I said.

  A car backfired noisily outside.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘met him at a lecture on art at Trinity. Some chap who used to teach there. He’s now something to do with the Queen’s pictures. Very interesting.’ He paused. ‘We got chatting. That’s all.’

  ‘And he asked you to run some errands for him?’

  ‘Eventually,’ he said. ‘It was fun. The odd weekend in Belgium all paid for. Trips to London.’

  ‘But you found out what you were smuggling in and decided to take a piece of it.’

  ‘I always knew what I was carrying,’ he said. ‘Which is why I didn’t carry it. I used to post it to myself. I don’t know why Jenkins didn’t think of it. Would have saved him a lot of money,’ he said.

  ‘Possibly,’ I said, ‘he did think of it, but knew there’s a risk that such parcels will be examined by Customs and Excise.’

  ‘Really?’ he said. ‘I guess I must have been lucky. Thanks for warning me. Tell you what, old thing, I’d like that package back. I gave you the wrong one for Beverley. As you probably know.’

  I had to admire his self-assurance.

  ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said.

  He shook his head and smiled sourly. ‘What do you really want to know?’ he said.

  ‘Where you were on Tuesday night when your friend, Richard Ellis, managed to get himself killed.’

  ‘I was in Cambridge with Rose. Just like she told the nice policeman,’ he said.

  ‘I know what Rose told the police,’ I said. ‘But she told me something else. She told me she went out to the pub with her friend, Florrie. I’m inclined to believe that. So, where were you?’

  The clock on the mantelpiece ticked away the seconds of a brief silence. Then Jonathan Harrison sighed. ‘Actually, I was in Cambridge. Just not with good old Rose.’

  ‘So you didn’t kill Richard and don’t know who did?’

  Again, he didn’t answer for a while and then looked up and smiled at me insolently. ‘Funny, I didn’t take you for a dickfer,’ he said.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Someone with a dick for brains,’ he said. ‘Of course I didn’t kill Richard. He was my friend. I liked him. I didn’t like him quite how he liked me, but I liked him.’

  ‘And how did he like you?’ I said.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ he said, and sighed theatrically, ‘even you must have heard of the love that dare not speak its name. Of men who are not as other men.’

  ‘I’ve heard rumours,’ I said.

  ‘Well . . .’ He spread his hands, palms upwards.

  I looked up at the chipped plaster ducks. They reminded me of Maman. Not because she had any. On the contrary. She was caustic about anyone who possessed such ornaments. ‘She has no taste,’ she would say, her pretty face soured and lined by an unbecoming disdain. Grand-père would chuckle. ‘Not at all, Mireille,’ he would say, teasingly, ‘she has plenty of taste. All of it bad.’

  The car backfired again.

  I heard a creak on the stairs.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘what you’re saying is that Richard had feelings for you.’

  ‘You could say that,’ he said and smiled again.

  It was my turn to sigh. ‘So, was he jealous?’ I said.

  He shook his head. ‘More moonstruck,’ he said. ‘Others might have been jealous of him . . .’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Bev, for a start.’

  ‘I don’t see Miss Beaumont as the garrotting kind,’ I said.

  He shrugged. What do you know? he seemed to be saying. And he was right. I didn’t know anything about her really.

  ‘What about Mrs Elvin?’ I said. ‘Rose.’

  He giggled. It wasn’t a girlish, coquettish sound, just a childish one.

  ‘She’s certainly passionate enough,’ he said. ‘And very strong. She was a Land Girl in the war for a bit, as well as a driver. And then she worked in the laundry straight after. Working those mangles must give you muscles.’

  I saw in the mirror the door behind me swinging open. I couldn’t make out who stood in the gloom of the passageway outside, but he started to speak and I recognized the voice. I’d been expecting Mrs Elvin, and the male voice was something of a surprise.

  ‘You really are a little tart, aren’t you? Is there anyone you’ve come across who you haven’t slept with?’ he said.

  Jonathan Harrison giggled again as David Cavendish came into the room and stood behind my chair. In the mirror, I could see that his shirt was unbuttoned, and he hastily tucked it into his trousers. He wasn’t wearing braces, and his belt was in his hand.

  ‘Well,’ Jon said, ‘I haven’t slept with this gentleman. Mind you, he hasn’t asked.’ He looked at me enquiringly.

  ‘I don’t like you,’ I said, ‘and I make a point of only sleeping with people I like.’

  ‘Your loss,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘You have all the charm and appeal of rancid lard. And I think you know who killed poor harmless Richard and why.’ I looked up and back at Cavendish. ‘And now I think I do too.’

  Harrison laughed and stood up. ‘Are you going to let him talk to me like that, David?’ he said. ‘More to the point, can you safely let him leave?’

  Cavendish looked a warning at Jon and then he looked down at me. ‘What do you mean?’ he said. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Oh, come on, David,’ Jon said. ‘I know. And so does he. Now.’

  Cavendish ran a hand through his blond hair and then wiped it down his handsome, boyish face. The hand trembled a little. Suddenly, he lifted the belt, looped it around my neck and pulled on it viciously. The stiff leather bit into my throat. I managed to slip my right index finger between it and my Adam’s apple, but that wasn’t going to do me much good unless I could get some purchase on the belt and pull it away. As things stood, I’d just have a finger crushed in addition to my larynx.

  I tried to stand up to change Cavendish’s angle of attack, but he yelled at Jonathan Harrison to stop me and Jon was only too willing to oblige. He dived on me, grabbed me around the waist and his weight forced me back into the chair. I hit him twice with a couple of short lefts in the face, but he held on to me. It was no consolation to know that he wouldn’t be quite as pretty for a few days.

  I clawed at the belt, but I could feel the veins standing out on my forehead and I thought my head was going to explode. I was running out of breath and knew I only had one more effort in me before they’d have it all their own way.

  I heaved upwards and dislodged Jon. He fell to the floo
r and dragged me with him. Our combined weight hauled Cavendish after us, and the heavy armchair moved sideways, the feet catching on the carpet and rucking it up.

  I lay on my back, on top of Jon, with Cavendish off balance. I reached up and tugged on the belt, pulling Cavendish over the armchair. He fell awkwardly, but still kept hold of the garrotte. My throat felt as though it was on fire, but I managed a gulp of air as the improvised noose loosened just a little. I flailed at Cavendish desperately. There wasn’t much fight left in me.

  We thrashed about a little more as Harrison struggled to get out from under me; I strove to get a grip on the belt around my neck and pull it away, and Cavendish manoeuvred himself behind me, sat me up and put his knee in my back and started to pull. Harrison panted like an old hound in hot weather, and there was a sharp animal stink coming off us all.

  And that was how Ghislaine found us.

  She stood in the doorway for a couple of seconds and then reached into her bag and took out one of the little black guns I had seen Emile use to shoot Alfred.

  She yelled at Cavendish to stop, but either he didn’t speak French or he wasn’t going to stop until I was dead. The edges of my vision were turning from red to black, the pounding in my head became a deafening drum solo and I could feel myself slipping into unconsciousness. I wanted to tell him that she would shoot him, but I couldn’t speak.

  I don’t remember hearing the gun fire, but I was aware of Cavendish slumping down behind me and the excruciating pain in my throat easing. Then, through a haze, I saw Jonathan Harrison get up and walk towards her. Quite what he intended to do, I don’t know but it hardly mattered. The only important thing was what Ghislaine thought he was going to do.

  I made a sort of hoarse gurgling noise, but it made no difference. And this time I did hear the gunshots – both of them – as she shot Jonathan Harrison in the chest.

  His hands didn’t move to clutch at the dark stains that appeared on his vest, but he did take a step backwards and a faint look of surprise, the ‘this can’t be happening to me’ expression that I’d seen during the war, flickered across his face before it went blank and he collapsed in an untidy heap, like dirty sheets in a laundry. Though this particular pile was leaking bright-red blood.