‘She needed love and understanding not a damned bullet.’
Freda Palfrey blanched with anger at this remark and shook the pistol at Epstein. ‘Do you think it was easy? Do you think I was happy to do it? I sobbed myself to sleep for weeks when I knew that this was the only answer. It was only the fact that I was right and God was on my side that gave me the courage to do it. The little girl I brought into the world, that sweet innocent child had become a sinful monster. I have no conscience about the matter. It was the right thing to do.’
Epstein shook his head in disbelief. ‘I don’t understand … I just don’t understand.’ His bewilderment seemed to amuse her.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed his discarded pistol near his feet. He was fairly certain Mrs Palfrey hadn’t seen it. Could he make a grab for it and defend himself? He quickly weighed up the situation and realized that by the time he had snatched up the weapon, she would have shot him.
‘Bastards like you never do understand. You go through life without a thought for the people you use, people you taint with your money.’
‘What on earth are you going to do? Go after every man who slept with Pammie and kill them? It’s quite a long list.’
Freda Palfrey’s face twisted with anger. ‘I know. Don’t you think I know? I knew all about my daughter. She thought she had kept her “other” life a secret, her life away from home, but she hadn’t. Not from me anyway. Right from the beginning, I followed her. Watched her. Saw what she was getting up to. I was her guardian angel.’
Epstein could imagine the manic vigilance with which she had spied on her daughter. In his conversations with Pammie, she had always avoided talking about her home life but he had deduced that she had led a repressed existence there and was delighted when she was able to move into a place of her own. In the early days, when she first came to work for him, he had witnessed the joy and glee she exhibited at the simplest of treats. It was as though she had been kept cocooned – kept away from the real world. Epstein saw now that this was indeed the case. The mother had been unable to sever the umbilical cord. And Pammie’s repression had built within her an enormous appetite for life, an appetite which knew no moral boundaries. She had become the person she was because of the way she had been treated at home. Epstein could see that Freda Palfrey had gone beyond being convinced that this was the truth of the situation. She had obviously been obsessed with ‘protecting’ her daughter for such a long time and this obsession had led to insanity. And there was no reasoning with an insane woman, especially when she had gun.
‘I knew I could only destroy a small number of those men who helped to bring about her downfall. I did not have to think for too long who I wanted to kill. There was Fraser, Moore and you. Fraser, because he really used my girl; you called him a pimp and that’s right. Pamela was little more than a business asset to him.
‘Gordon Moore, because he was famous and had money and he used his wealth and fame to get him whatever he wanted. And you, Mr Leo Epstein, because you took advantage of Pamela’s innocence. When she came to work for you, she knew nothing of sex or loose morals, but under your guidance she soon learned. And now you make it worse by saying that you cared for her! You liar! You have even deceived yourself. Like all men … like all men the only thing you care about is you.’
She was now roaring her words now, her whole body trembling with fury. Epstein jumped to his feet. He couldn’t just wait there to be shot like some kind of diseased animal. He had to take some action. If he moved swiftly, dropping to the ground, and lunging forward he might be able to overpower her in a rugby tackle. It was very risky, but what was the alternative? Remain where he was like a sitting duck and get the full blast in his chest?
But before he could make a move, Freda Palfrey cocked the pistol.
‘No!’ he cried and leapt forward. As he did so, a shot rang out.
thirty-five
My pal Leo Epstein lived in a select part of Holborn. Cedar Court was a prestigious-looking block of flats which appeared from its grey stone and angular appearance as though it had been built less than ten years ago. There was obviously money to be made in the solicitoring game.
Leaving my rather wobbly bike at the gateway, I passed through the grand revolving doors into the entrance hall, which was guarded in a somewhat incompetent fashion by a slumbering doorman. I slipped by the dozing fellow and made my way up in the lift to the third floor. Distractedly, I stared at the shaking gates of the lift as I rattled upwards to the appointed floor and I grew very nervous. While pedalling here as though all the devils in hell and a troop of Gestapo thugs had been on my tail, I hadn’t really thought about what I was likely to encounter once I had actually reached Epstein’s apartment. A corpse possibly? Or just a frightened man hiding in the bathroom? Or maybe a couple copulating in bed? Well, that would be a relief!
I reached the third floor and sought out Flat 14. The corridor was empty and so I pulled my pistol from my raincoat pocket. It was, I knew, an overly dramatic gesture but I reckoned I would need the gun. I hated the things. I wasn’t a naturally violent man, although I could look after myself in a scrap, but guns gave one a kind of unfair advantage. And, as I clasped the handle firmly, I could not forget what one of its bigger brothers had done to me.
I was unsure whether to ring the bell or just try to enter Epstein’s apartment without announcing my presence. Such a choice was wrested from me for, as I stood before the door, I heard a shot ring out inside, followed by a sharp cry.
Without hesitation I burst through the door, to catch sight of Epstein lying on the floor, his right hand clutching his left shoulder. Rivulets of blood were running through his fingers on to his shirt. Standing over him was a dark shape. The shape had a gun. At the sound of my noisy entrance, the shape turned in my direction. It was Freda Palfrey. My brain fizzed and crackled. In an instant I understood.
The jigsaw was complete.
It was the mother – not the father. Of course. I had so convinced myself that Eric Palfrey was the killer, I had never placed his wife anywhere near the frame. How naïve was that?
However, I had no time to develop these thoughts at that moment for now she was pointing her gun at me. My instinct was to fire at her before she had a chance to pull the trigger, but I couldn’t. How could I shoot this woman, deranged as she was? Some inbuilt instinct held me back from shooting. And yet, Johnny Boy, my brain screamed, you just can’t stand there and let her blast you to kingdom come. Do something, you fool! So I did. In desperation, I threw my gun at her. With great force and reasonable accuracy.
Freda Palfrey screamed as it thudded against her chest.
Distracted by the flying weapon, she staggered backwards and then stumbled sideways with the shock. I rushed forward and knocked her gun flying from her hand. She let out another scream. ‘You devil,’ she cried and tried to attack me, but I held her arms at bay. She struggled for a while, her fingers wriggling desperately to reach my face, but she had little strength and soon collapsed on the floor in a sobbing heap.
Epstein pulled himself up into a sitting position. ‘She tried to kill me,’ he bleated, still clutching his wounded shoulder.
‘You were the lucky one,’ I said, picking up the telephone.
* * *
Two hours later I was sitting in the back of a police car hurtling through the darkened streets of London on the way to the Palfreys house in Pinner. Sitting beside me was my old mate Inspector David Llewellyn. It was he I telephoned from Epstein’s flat and he had set official things in motion. The injured solicitor was scooped up and taken to hospital to have his wound attended to. I estimated that a long wait was in store for Mr Epstein. After a night of heavy bombing, the casualties would be numerous and a poncey solicitor who’d been involved in a domestic shooting would come well down the list of priorities.
Freda Palfrey had been carted off to the cells. She went quietly, with barely a word, her face revealing none of her feelings or inner turmoil. It was a
s though all her emotions had been squeezed out of her.
David was chuckling by the side of me as the car rocked gently from side to side as it sped down the narrow streets. ‘Old Dirty Knight won’t like this at all,’ he said with some delight. ‘He was convinced that Fraser was the guilty party.…’
‘Or had convinced himself that was the truth,’ I ventured.
David nodded. ‘You are probably right. In essence he’s a good copper, but he does tend to jump to conclusions and then refuses to budge.’ He chuckled again. ‘He’ll hate you even more now you’ve proved him wrong.’
‘I’m not sure I’ve proved anything. I am as surprised as anyone that Mrs Palfrey is our man … so to speak.’
‘Right you are. A real turn up for the book. Still, she’s not right in the head, is she?’
‘Not now, I suppose. An obsessive mother unable to cut the apron strings … I can’t help but feel sorry for her.’
‘Come on, boy, she was not that innocent. She was a cunning old girl and everything was coldly premeditated.’
‘But her actions were selfless. She was saving her daughter and punishing her corrupters.’
‘Saving her daughter…? By stabbing her in the chest? I can’t cope with that kind of twisted psychology.’
‘If it’s any consolation, I don’t understand it fully myself,’ I said, lighting up a cigarette. While waiting for the ambulance Epstein had told me in great detail about her visit to his flat and all that she had said to him, had confessed to him. Freda Palfrey had just sat there listening to his recital and never said a word. Her face was a blank sheet registering no emotion. In fact, I wondered if she was actually listening to him. Probably not. She was most likely lost in some other world where her kind of justice made sense.
‘Do you think the father was in on it?’ asked David.
I shook my head. ‘I don’t think so. If they were both involved, why on earth come to me to investigate the matter?’
‘People who are not right in the head do many strange things.’
I blew a wreath of grey smoke at my own reflection in the darkened window of the car. ‘No, I think he was as naïve and innocent as the rest of us. He loved Pammie too much to hurt her in that way. I wonder how he’ll take it.’
‘Well, we’ll soon know,’ David observed, as the patrol car pulled up outside the Palfrey home. Not much of a home now.
I glanced at my watch. It was just coming up to 2 a.m. My God, I thought, what a long night it’s been.
David instructed the driver to stay in the car, while we went to rouse Mr Palfrey. I did not envy David’s job of passing on the terrible news that his wife was in custody on the charge of murder and that one of the victims was his daughter.
He wrapped hard on the front door and rang the bell. We heard the notes of ‘Greensleeves’ playing faintly. We waited. There was no response. With the blackout curtains, it was almost impossible to tell whether anyone had been roused by the noise. David tried again, shouting the word, ‘Police’ through the letter box.
Nothing.
He gave me a quizzical look. ‘Not happy about this. Reckon I’ll have to make a forced entry.’
I nodded and placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Well, before you do yourself some personal injury trying to break the door down, let me have a go with my portable burgling kit,’ I said, taking out my sturdy bit of wire.
In less than two minutes I had released the lock and we were able to enter the Palfrey household. The first thing we became aware of was a smell, faint but definite.
‘Gas,’ I said.
‘Bloody right,’ he cried, opening the first door he came to – the one leading to the sitting-room. He had difficulty pushing the door back because something was obstructing it: a row of cushions.
The smell of gas grew stronger. The room was full of it.
‘Don’t, for God’s sake, turn the light on,’ I cried. ‘One spark and we could be up there with the Spitfires.’
‘I’ll use my torch. I’ll go outside to switch it on.’
This done, we both clamped out handkerchiefs to our faces and peered inside the room. The beam of David’s torch soon fell upon the body of Eric Palfrey; he was lying by the gas fire, his head resting on a cushion. The unlit fire hissed gas at us.
I tackled the gas fire, switching it off, while David pulled back the blackout curtains and threw open the windows. For a while we both stood with our heads outside the windows breathing deeply, filling our lungs with untainted cold night air. After ten minutes or so, the atmosphere had cleared in the room sufficiently for us to lift the body and carry it into the hallway and then out on to the path outside. Of course, it was too late. Eric Palfrey was dead. No doubt it was what he had wanted: to float to his Maker on a sea of fumed sleep.
In his hand he clutched a piece of paper. Gently I unfolded his fingers back and released it.
The paper contained just two words. ‘I know.’
thirty-six
Dawn was creeping into the sky when a police car dropped me off at the corner of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. I thanked the driver for the lift. He gave me a weary look to indicate that he was only obeying orders and that he’d had no choice in the matter. I had hardly stepped out of the vehicle when he slammed it into gear and with a squeal of tyres he drove off at speed.
For some time I watched the car, its tail lights flashing angrily occasionally as the tired driver braked for some reason or other, until it had disappeared from sight – and I was alone. A solitary figure in a lonely landscape. The shapes of clouds could now be discerned overhead, but the lightening sky showed no traces of blue. It was to be another grey day. In more ways than one.
As I began to trudge back to my flat, I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness and emptiness. In many ways, I had only been a peripheral player in the Palfrey tragedy but events had affected me more than I could articulate. A family had destroyed itself for no real reason. And there were other casualties as well. With a measure of tolerance, understanding and some undemanding love, none of this would have happened.
I shrugged. What did I know? I was just the poor bastard who’d tried to untie the knots in this bloody ball of string. I had failed. Well, all but. I reckoned I might get a Christmas card from Leo Epstein. I grinned weakly at the thought.
I spotted an empty milk bottle in the gutter and for no explainable reason I stepped into the kerb and gave it a hearty kick. It sailed into the air and landed in the middle of the road where it smashed into a thousand pieces. It gave me great satisfaction to see the shiny fragments scatter across the tarmac. It lightened my soul.
As I got to the corner of Priors Court, I passed Sammy Wills with his milk cart. I patted his horse, Marcel, and blagged a free pint of milk from Sammy.
‘Don’t drink it all at once, Master Johnny,’ said old Sammy, giving me his toothless grin.
‘This has to last me the week,’ I called back over my shoulder.
‘Away with you,’ he called, pulling his old nag further down the street.
When I arrived at the entrance to Hawke Towers, I found it blocked by a bundle of rags – or what at first glance appeared to be a bundle of rags. It was in fact a little boy, curled in a foetal position, fast asleep. Déjà vu time.
It was Peter.
I roused him gently, tugging his shoulder until his eyes flickered open. It took him a while to remember who he was, where he was and who the chap was louring over him. When he did, his face brightened and his eyes shone. ‘Johnny … Mr Hawke. You’ve come at last.’
‘What on earth are you doing here, my lad?’
‘I’ve come to stay with you, of course. I’ve left the hospital. I’m better now. The nurse told me. And she said that they were going to send me to an orphanage. That’s why I had to escape. Well, I’m not going to one of them prisons. You won’t let them take me, will you?’
He suddenly lunged forward and clasped his arms around my legs and began to sob.
God
, I thought, this long, horrible night is still not over.
‘I think,’ I said, at length, ‘we’d better go in for some breakfast.’
His wet, tearstained face gazed up at me. ‘Oh, yes please,’ he grinned.
* * *
As usual the Hawke larder yielded up little of consequence. I managed to find a few slices of bread and a tin of beans. Well, beans on stale unbuttered bread was a speciality of the house. However, it delighted Peter. He sat enraptured, watching me while I prepared this modest feast and then he wolfed it down as though he hadn’t eaten for months.
I poured us both a mug of tea. He slurped his noisily and then apologized.
‘Now then,’ I said as casually as possible, ‘what’s all this about you leaving the hospital … and the truth mind. Remember Tiger Blake never lies.’
‘Except to the enemy.’
‘Well, that’s different. And I’m your friend.’
Peter grinned and nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said.
And so he told me all about his daring ‘escape’ from the clutches of his enemies at the hospital who planned to cart him off to an orphanage prison; and how he reckoned I would let him stay with me instead, ‘kind of adopting me, sort of’ because he liked me and we both liked Tiger Blake.
Looking at that smiling little boy, with the animated features and the bright light of hope burning fiercely in his eyes, I felt sick at heart. I wanted to hold him to my breast and hug him tightly until all his demons, all his unhappiness had been squeezed away.
But I couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t work. Life is not that easy.
‘Well, we’ll have to see, Peter, old chap. Certainly for the moment you can call Hawke Towers your home,’ I said as casually as possible, playing for time with a false smile in place.
That lie seemed to please him and he began slurping his tea once more.
‘One thing, Peter … you mustn’t run away from me again. OK? Cross your heart and hope to die.’
‘It’s a deal: cross my heart and hope to die.’
Forests of the Night Page 19
