by Janet Neel
Davidson cleared his throat. ‘We maybe should be considering an unconnected murderer.’
‘I know you think it was a straightforward mugging, Bruce, no need to remind me. Let’s leave it for now anyway — I picked up a bit of light relief on the way out of the station. Call from some pop star who is receiving threatening phone calls. Just round the corner here, and we may as well do it on the way to lunch.’
Three streets away the big Rolls took a corner with the tyres screaming.
‘There is going to be nothing left of this car, Perry, if it gets driven like this all the time,’ Francesca observed, clinging to the strap as the brown Rolls swung round another corner and slammed on all anchors in front of a large early Victorian semi-detached house. A selection of disapproving residents of the quiet cul-de-sac popped out of various doors and retired again, visibly disgruntled.
‘Since it belongs to Trio Recording, I should co-co,’ her brother retorted. ‘We aren’t middle-class poor anymore, you know. I am part of the rich meeja.’
‘Easy come, easy go. Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves.’ She thought for a moment. ‘That really can’t be right, can it?’
‘Not possibly. It’s part of the Old Scots Lies we were brought up with.’ Perry was laughing. ‘Fran darling, do you know how much I have earned from “Wrong Road”? One hundred and fifty thousand pounds so far. OK, there is tax, but it pays a few bills.’
‘Speaking as one to whom HMG pays twenty thousand a year, it must.’
‘Never mind, darling, I expect you’ll get married. Again.’
‘You’re joking. I plan to be Dame Francesca Wilson loaded with years and honours, and to have a long string of lovers.’
‘It won’t suit you,’ her brother warned, with love. ‘You’ll have better luck next time and a string of children.’
Francesca, looking mutinous, scrambled out of the car, the door held for her by Perry’s driver, a hefty young man with a pony tail and a lot of clanking medallions. She knew that he was also a bodyguard for Perry but had never quite got used to his style, and could not manage to believe that he would be any use in a fight. In this she did him a serious injustice; he had been heavily fined and put on probation for half killing a troublesome fan at a pop concert before he had entered Trio Recording’s service.
All three of them stood for a moment gazing at the front of the house. It was a mixed and lively scene. Scaffolding ran up to the roof, with men spread out over it at various points. Two transistor radios, tuned to two different stations and both playing at full volume, operated separately at roof and first-floor level. From the ground floor, in effective competition with both radios, the choral passage from Beethoven’s Ninth boomed out. As they watched, a dark head popped out of a second-floor window and a clear soprano shriek could be heard above the din adjuring one Frankie to turn the fucker off. One transistor and the Beethoven fell silent forthwith, and Perry glanced uneasily at his sister.
‘Most effective,’ she said blandly. ‘If Sheena could just use a similar approach to get the other trannie tuned out, we could ring Edgware Road.’
‘I’ve done that. They are sending someone round, so I decided I had just time to come and get you.’
‘But Perry, they won’t want to talk to me. I only came to persuade you that you really did need to call them.’ She noticed that he was looking uneasy. ‘What is it? Oh sorry, hello Sheena.’
‘Hi, Frannie.’ Sheena Roberts, who at twenty-one had already been a top photographic model for six years, kissed Francesca ceremonially, as usual managing to make her feel awkward, clumsy and ungracious. She was taller even than Francesca, weighed about twenty pounds less, had long silky black hair, a clear olive skin and a body which managed to be both thin enough for photographic modelling and voluptuously sexy. That morning she was dressed in skin-tight men’s jeans, and a baggy, immaculately clean white sweatshirt, and made everyone else look stuffy and overdressed. She looked full of health and very intelligent, and Francesca, who knew that she was only just literate and suspected that she regularly took drugs, marvelled again. She always felt markedly inferior in Sheena’s company, and it was only of limited comfort that she knew Sheena felt the same way in hers.
‘Well, that’s all right then, Sheena,’ she observed, trying for a friendly sisterly approach and, as usual, feeling like a fifty-year-old headmistress. ‘If I can take some lunch off you, I’ll be away. I’m needed back at the ranch.’
‘I done lunch. Come on down.’ The group picked its way through the scaffolding and down the stairs to the basement which was recognizably on its way to being an open plan kitchen/dining-room. On the large table enough lunch for at least twelve people had been expensively assembled.
‘I’ll call everyone, shall I?’ Perry volunteered.
‘Perry, you ’aven’t told Frannie why she is ’ere, ’ave you?’ Sheena, sought after by every agency and photographer in the UK since she was fifteen, had never seen any need to modify her native East End accent.
Perry looked uneasy, but stood his ground, and Sheena glanced at him indulgently. ‘It’s like this, Frannie. Thing is, my old man, my ’usband, ’e’s a stylist.’
‘A what, sorry, Sheena?’
‘He’s a hairdresser, Fran.’ Perry evidently felt it would be safer to intervene than to let Sheena explain. ‘In fact, darling, he is a hairdresser at Gordon and John.’
‘But that’s where I go.’
‘Exactly. So he knows about you, and in fact the mystery voice has uttered threats against you as well as against me.’ Perry considered his sister, who was apparently struck dumb. ‘Well I’m sorry, Fran, to have involved you, but I didn’t know you went to Gordon and John or I would have warned you, and of course Sheena didn’t either.’
‘Is it possible, Sheena, that it is your husband who does my hair?’
‘No, it’s Ted does yours. ’E uses Alexander as ’is professional name, of course. ’E’s good. Much better cutter than my old man.’
Something about this seriously expressed judgement amused Francesca sufficiently to make her forget her mounting outrage, and Perry heaved a small sigh of relief as he realized his sister was not going to hit the roof.
‘What is the voice threatening to do, precisely?’ she asked, just as the front door bell rang.
Perry picked up the intercom and listened. ‘The police,’ he reported. ‘I’ll go. Where do we want to see them? It’s a choice of down here or in the bedroom — that’s where we are living.’
‘The group’s in the bedroom,’ Sheena volunteered. ‘Better down ’ere.’
Perry nodded, took the basement stairs in four strides and seconds later his long leather-clad legs reappeared, followed by two pairs of orthodox grey trousers. Fran was momentarily distracted by Sheena who, with her back turned, was speaking into the intercom, just audibly instructing anyone upstairs who had anything they shouldn’t to dump it or get off the premises, since the Old Bill were visiting. Rattled, she moved swiftly over to the stairs to cover the conversation and almost bumped into the descending group.
‘My sister, Francesca.’
Francesca put out her hand automatically, too distracted by trying to hear whether Sheena was still talking to register what the newcomers were like. The sheer size of the hand that enveloped hers startled her, and she looked up at its owner who was staring at her with an expression of pure amazement. The smaller man at his side was visibly suppressing a grin, and saying, ‘Aye, well Miss Wilson, we met yesterday. Ye were running up and down the steps forgetting things just round the corner here. My name’s Davidson, and this is Detective Inspector McLeish.’
The taller man let go of her hand as if he had been stung, and Francesca, feeling that events were getting beyond her, shook hands with Davidson.
‘Detective Inspector McLeish, and Detective Sergeant Davidson, my sister, Francesca Wilson, and Sheena Roberts.’ Full marks to that young man, thought McLeish, recovering from the temporary
paralysis induced by finding himself in the same room as the girl he had been thinking about for twenty-four hours. Not everyone bothers to give the police their right names and titles.
‘It was my sister who felt that we should ask you to advise us on this difficulty,’ Perry said helpfully, seeing that for some reason no one else seemed to be going to speak.
‘Well, that’s what we are here for,’ McLeish said heartily, making an effort and sounding to his own ears like a caricature of the local bobby. He glanced despairingly at Davidson who was standing woodenly but unselfconsciously beside him, his gaze resting consideringly on the table. ‘If I could start by getting everyone’s names and addresses.’ He nodded to Davidson who pulled a notebook from his pocket, as Perry urged everyone to sit down.
McLeish sat, squaring his elbows and making an effort of concentration, acutely conscious of Francesca. Beside her brother and Sheena, both phenomena with which as a London policeman he was familiar, Francesca looked as exotic as a hawk in her tidy Jaeger suit. She in her turn, now that her attention was no longer distracted by the possibility of the immediate arrest of one of Perry’s henchmen, all of whom she knew from experience took an amazing variety of pills and drugs, was watching him under her eyelashes with interest. An attractive man, she thought, with the wide shoulders and generally triangular shape of the athlete, dark springy hair above a high brow, rather heavy eyebrows above eyes somewhere between green and brown. Not quite good looking, she thought, the crooked nose and the rather heavy jaw prevented that, but very distinctive. A Scot, of course. He turned his head suddenly and caught her watching him, and their eyes met. Francesca, who had all the social confidence of her background, went on placidly contemplating him, and he looked back at her equally steadily, deciding that her eyes were more grey than blue. A serious, disciplined face, like no other girl he knew, but somehow deeply familiar.
At his side, Davidson noisily turned over a page in his notebook, and clattered with a pencil. ‘Right, if we could start with your details, please Mr Wilson?’
Perry offered his name, address, and occupation and introduced Sheena as Miss Roberts.
‘That is your professional name. Miss Roberts?’
‘It’s my given name. My married name is Sheena Byers, but I never use it professionally. All the agents know me as Sheena Roberts.’ A raving beauty, McLeish thought in appreciation, and too confident to bother with changing her given name to anything more exotic. ‘I live ’ere, with Perry.’
McLeish glanced involuntarily at Francesca but that serious face gave nothing away.
‘My legal name is Francesca Lewendon.’ McLeish was conscious only of a violent stab of disappointment. ‘But given that I am now divorced, I have reverted to my maiden name, Francesca Wilson.’ McLeish felt Davidson next to him breathe out cautiously. ‘I live round the corner, where you saw me yesterday, at 19 Wellcome Street. Damn!’ Davidson and McLeish both looked up startled. ‘Soup is burning.’
Davidson, who had eaten nothing since breakfast and who was always hungry, unconsciously licked his lips, and McLeish reflected that it was a pity they had not stopped on the way. He saw Francesca’s glance flick across Davidson.
‘Could we not all have some lunch?’ she proposed. ‘It’s past 1 o’clock, I haven’t eaten, I have to be back in my office for 2.30, and I work very badly without lunch.’ She raised an eyebrow at her brother, ignoring Sheena who might, McLeish thought, be presumed to be the mistress of the house and indeed looked irritated by this treatment. Perry seconded her invitation immediately.
‘Please do eat. I appreciate you are on duty, but it is after all we who have asked for your help, rather than you who are asking us to help with your enquiries.’
‘Thank you,’ McLeish said, realizing that he as well as Davidson was tired and hungry and presumably less than efficient. He watched with interest as Francesca served the soup and assembled five plates of smoked salmon and assorted goodies.
‘Forty bars silence,’ Francesca commanded, and Davidson, his mouth full, gazed at her enquiringly. ‘Old family saying, originating with our mother when asked kindly what piece of music she would next like to hear. No one can eat and talk, so let’s eat first.’
Davidson beamed at her gratefully and fell to. McLeish watching her out of the tail of his eye as he worked his way through a vast plate noticed that she was not in fact all that hungry, and that she kept an eye on their plates to see they had enough. Davidson, McLeish noted, obviously felt himself perfectly at home, and passed his plate matter-of-factly for a second helping. He watched, noticing that she had unobtrusively slid another plate of bread over to them both, and was herself sitting companionably eating grapes in order to keep them company, both Perry and Sheena having eaten very little.
‘That went down grateful.’ Davidson beamed at her, and held out his cup for more coffee. She grinned back.
‘Must have. You’ve gone a quite different colour.’
McLeish felt a moment’s murderous jealousy at Davidson’s accustomed success with women, but realized that Francesca was in fact wholly unimpressed, merely amused.
‘So, everyone,’ she said encouragingly, when they had cleared their plates, and she was pouring coffee. ‘I’ve got about twenty minutes before I must go back unless I can have The Car?’
‘I’ll be happy to take you back, Miss Wilson. I have an errand at New Scotland Yard. Sergeant Davidson can finish up here if there are any loose ends.’ McLeish had a well-justified reputation for decisiveness and ability to make the machine work, and Davidson knew better than to ask questions about how he would manage without a car.
‘I understand that threats have been made against you, Mr Wilson, and against Mrs Byers and against Miss Wilson.’ McLeish, having seized the advantage, pressed on.
‘We — I — have now received up to three phone calls in the early hours of the last three mornings demanding Sheena’s return forthwith, or unspecified nasties would happen to me and to my sister.’
‘No threats addressed to Sheena?’ Francesca asked.
‘I told you. ’E wants me back.’
Francesca’s eyebrows went up and McLeish intervened hastily. ‘Did you recognize the voice, Mrs Byers?’
‘Never ’eard it. Perry don’t like me to answer the phone in case ’ooever it is finks I’m alone.’
McLeish distinctly saw Francesca’s lips move disbelievingly, but pushed on. ‘And you, Mr Wilson? Did you recognize the voice. Or are there several voices?’
‘No,’ Perry said, with certainty. ‘But I would know it again. It’s always the same voice.’
‘What does your husband do, Mrs Byers?’ McLeish decided to pass on.
‘’E’s a stylist.’
‘A hairdresser,’ Francesca volunteered, blandly. McLeish patiently extracted his name and address, and the information that Francesca attended that particular salon.
‘Or used to attend. I hardly feel I can go back there, in the circumstances, which is a bore.’ She gave her brother a hard-case scowl, and looked up to see McLeish looking at her thoughtfully.
‘Miss Wilson, if you got Mr Byers on the phone, your brother could listen to the voice and identify it if possible.’
‘Would that be evidence?’
‘Not by itself, no. But I had it in mind to go and interview him, and it would help me if I could be sure it was he making the phone calls.’
Francesca thought about that for a minute, then went to the telephone, motioning Perry to an extension. She checked his working name with Sheena, and put on a masterly performance of a rather stupid debutante’s mother, with a high-pitched county drawl, who had been particularly recommended to him and who wanted to seek his advice on a hairstyle for a gala occasion. The East End accent could be heard clearly through the modish, slightly camp, patter of the man at the other end, and Perry looked up and nodded to McLeish after three or four sentences. Francesca’s performance was the more impressive as a piece of imagination, thought McLeish, inasmuch a
s she had obviously never in her life thought in terms of a hairstyle for a gala occasion. The same thought had obviously struck her brother, who put his extension down at the end of the conversation, grinning broadly.
‘It’s not funny, sorry Sheena, but I did like the idea of Fran with her two inches of hair done up in Empire-style ringlets for the Feathers Ball. It’s the same voice, Inspector, and I feel a fool. We could have thought of ringing up ourselves.’
‘Are you quite sure?’
‘Oh yes.’ Perry spoke with dismissive confidence. ‘I could swear to it in Court if necessary.’ He saw McLeish’s doubtful expression. ‘It has to do with being a singer — I’m so used to listening to voices I really am sure.’ He reached out for Sheena, and dropped an arm round her shoulders, unselfconsciously caressing one perfect breast. Francesca looked away, embarrassed.
‘Right then.’ McLeish rose to his feet, looking very large in the lowceilinged room. ‘We’ll take Miss Wilson with us, Sergeant, and I’ll drop you off at the station.’ Davidson folded up his notebook, collected his coat and reflected that he was lucky to be getting a ride home at all with his superior in full hunting cry. Francesca, both amused and impressed, meekly followed them both to the car. She and Davidson conversed politely about different varieties of car used by the police force, and McLeish observed with pleasure that this formidable girl had no idea which car was which. They left Davidson at the police station and drove off in a slightly constrained silence.
‘Very kind of you to give me a lift. I hate being late for meetings.’
‘Well, it’s not exactly in your day’s work I imagine, this sort of thing?’ McLeish offered, cautiously.
Francesca made a noise of sheer exasperation. ‘We must seem pretty incompetent to you, Inspector, but Sheena and her adherents are a bit outside our experience so far.’ She scowled at the windscreen, looking very young and very annoyed. McLeish decided that a note of realism would not come amiss.
