The Jazz Files

by Fiona Veitch Smith

  Poppy reluctantly agreed.

  They pulled up outside the theatre a few minutes later and Poppy sent up a quick prayer of thanks that they’d made it in one piece. Delilah cut the engine and turned to her friend. Her dark eyes behind the circular motoring goggles made her look like a bushbaby.

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said about us being on a ‘forbidden visitors’ list at Willow Park. Well, I’ve got a plan.”

  “Delilah, I don’t think this is wise…”

  Delilah’s bushbaby eyes started filling with tears. “Please, Poppy. I need to see her. I’ll go on my own if I have to, but it would be so much better if you could come with me. Of course, if you’re really not up to it, I’ll understand.”

  Poppy looked at her and sighed.

  Delilah nodded. “I’m sorry, Poppy, I should have thought. You’ve just got out of the hospital and –” She glumly reached for the crank.

  Poppy stopped her. “It’s not that I don’t want to help you, Delilah. I will of course be happy to go with you –”

  Delilah’s face lit up. “Oh, will you really? Are you sure you feel up to it? I can go on my own if you like –”

  “No, I’ll be fine. I’m a bit sore, but nothing I can’t handle. But that’s not the point. It’s not about how I feel; it’s that we won’t be able to get in.”

  Delilah cast her a mischievous glance and said, “Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong.”

  An hour later Poppy and Delilah were standing outside the wrought-iron gates of Willow Park. They were wearing nurses’ uniforms and wigs, borrowed from the costume department at The Old Vic. Delilah was now a plump, mousey blonde and Poppy a brunette. As an added precaution Poppy was also wearing spectacles.

  Poppy froze when she saw the guard who had let her in a few days ago. She held her breath and let Delilah do all the talking. One of Delilah’s many former suitors worked as a junior doctor in the men’s wing of Willow Park. Delilah had asked him to arrange passes for her and a fellow actress, as they were doing research for a new role. The young doctor had been reluctant at first, but when Delilah promised him dinner and a chance to woo her back, he had come up with the goods.

  Their cover story was that they had been sent by “the agency” to fill in for staff off sick with the flu. The guard, who was sneezing into an already drenched handkerchief and muttering that he could do with someone filling in for him, didn’t think twice about letting them in. So, for the second time in three days, Poppy walked up the gravel path towards the Gothic asylum.

  Inside, Poppy was relieved to see a different receptionist. They showed their passes, repeated their cover story and were waved in the direction of the women’s wing. Poppy had told Delilah that she thought their best bet was to get hold of a linen trolley and change bedding. She doubted their ability to answer medical questions if they claimed to be administering treatment. She got her bearings and led Delilah up to the second floor and the area where Elizabeth was held. She remembered seeing a linen cupboard near the nurses’ station. True enough, there it was. Delilah boldly walked past the nurses’ station and headed straight for the cupboard. She had told Poppy during the drive over that the key to inhabiting a role was to believe you really were that person and not to feel you had to convince anyone of it. She had explained her theory of method acting: “If you don’t question yourself, no one else will.”

  So the two girls headed straight for the linen closet and each armed themselves with a pile of clean bedding. The nurse at the station did not look up from her magazine. Then Poppy led them to Elizabeth’s room. She looked through the glass pane and saw the auburn-haired woman in bed. Good, thought Poppy, she hasn’t been moved to the secure unit. She turned the doorknob, but it was locked.

  The nurse looked up. “What are you doing?”

  “Matron told us to change the bedding,” said Delilah.

  “Matron told me no one was to go in there,” said the nurse.

  “When did she tell you that?” asked Delilah.

  “About an hour ago.”

  “Well, she told us to change the bedding ten minutes ago. Should I go and get her, to confirm it to you?”

  A flicker of fear flashed in the nurse’s eyes, no doubt considering what Matron would say if it was known her authority was being questioned. But she wasn’t going down without a fight.

  “Who are you? I haven’t seen you before.”

  “The agency sent us. Flu cover.” Then they produced their passes.

  The nurse peered at them intently. Poppy was convinced they had been caught out. But then the nurse pulled up suddenly and sneezed. They blessed her. She thanked them, then came and unlocked the door before blowing her nose and returning to her magazine.

  Poppy and Delilah approached the bed. Elizabeth appeared to be asleep. Poppy shook her gently by the shoulder.

  “Excuse me, miss. We need to change the sheets.”

  Elizabeth opened her eyes and stared blearily at Poppy.

  “Sorry to wake you,” said Delilah, her voice quivering.

  Poppy and Delilah helped Elizabeth up and moved her to an armchair. The older woman moved sluggishly. As she slumped into the chair Poppy looked into her eyes. They were vacant and staring.

  “I think she’s been drugged,” she whispered to Delilah. “You change the bedding and I’ll talk to her.”

  Delilah started stripping the bed but kept a close ear on what was being said. Poppy flicked a glance through the door to the nurses’ station. They weren’t being watched.

  “Elizabeth,” she said softy, “it’s Poppy Denby. I came to visit you a few days ago. Remember? I’m Dot Denby’s niece.”

  “Dotty?” Elizabeth’s eyes focused for a moment. “You still look so young.”

  “No,” said Poppy, “I’m not Dotty. I’m her niece. And I’ve brought someone else to see you. This is Delilah Marconi. Gloria’s daughter.”

  Poppy took over making the bed while Delilah kneeled down beside the drugged woman.

  “Gloria? Gloria? I thought you were dead!” Her voice was raised.

  The nurse looked up. Poppy made a big deal of flapping out the sheets. The nurse returned to her reading.

  “Shhhh,” said Delilah. “We need to whisper. Can you whisper?”

  “I can,” said Elizabeth, but there was still a note of excitement in her voice. “Is it a secret?”

  “It is,” said Delilah. “Elizabeth, do you remember me? I was about fourteen the last time I saw you. Before you went to Holloway.”

  “Holloway,” repeated Elizabeth.

  “Yes, Holloway. You were there with my mother. Do you remember?”

  “Gloria.”

  “Yes, Gloria.”

  “I thought you were dead!”

  “No – no – I’m not Gloria. I’m –”

  “Just go with it,” said Poppy as she stuffed a pillow into a fresh pillowcase. “We don’t have much time.”

  Delilah nodded her understanding. “Yes, I’m Gloria. I need to ask you what happened that night in the train yard.”

  “But you were there!”

  “I know, but – but – I don’t remember. I lost my memory. I’m trying to get it back.”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “No.”

  “Do you remember the box? You were going to give it to Dotty and the rest of them. I was going to give it to you.”

  Delilah looked confused. “What box?”

  Poppy interjected, remembering that she hadn’t told Delilah about the box or the ledger page. “Yes, Elizabeth, she remembers the box. But you didn’t give it to her. Why didn’t you give it to her?”

  Elizabeth’s eyes widened and she looked past Delilah. “The shadow,” she whispered.

  “What about the shadow?” pressed Poppy, indicating with a flick of her head that Delilah was to take over making the bed while she knelt beside Elizabeth.

  The older woman turned and fixed her eyes on Delilah. “It pushed her under the train.”
/>
  Delilah dropped the sheet she was holding, all pretence of making the bed gone. “Someone pushed her? I mean me – someone pushed me?”

  “The shadow.”

  “The shadow’s a person?” asked Poppy.

  “Yes.”

  A voice came from the nurses’ station. “Are you two finished yet?”

  “Nearly!” called Poppy and then she said more quietly to Delilah, “Hold it together.”

  Delilah carried on making the bed, her hands shaking as she smoothed down the bedspread.

  “Who is the shadow, Elizabeth?”

  Elizabeth looked fearfully from one to the other. “It’s one of you.”

  “How can the shadow be Gloria, Elizabeth? It pushed her.”

  “No, not Gloria. You. Us. The Chelsea Six.”

  “The shadow is one of the Chelsea Six?”

  Elizabeth nodded.

  “How do you know?” asked Poppy.

  “Quick, she’s coming,” mumbled Delilah through gritted teeth as the nurse got up from her station.

  Poppy repeated her question as she picked up the pile of dirty laundry from the floor.

  “Because no one else knew about the box,” said Elizabeth. Then suddenly her eyes came into focus and her voice became more lucid. She stared again at Poppy. “It’s you. The journalist.”

  “That’s right,” said Poppy.

  “You promised to get me out of here.”

  “We will,” said Poppy as the nurse strode into the room.

  “What do they teach you in the agency?” She cast a critical eye over the bed and then at Elizabeth. “Are you just going to leave her there?”

  “No, of course not. Here –” Poppy took Elizabeth by the arm.

  “Oh, get out of here!” said the nurse. “I’ll do it myself. Come on, Liz. Back to bed.”

  Delilah and Poppy stood with their arms full of dirty linen.

  “Don’t just stand there gawping. Out!”

  Reluctantly, they left as the nurse helped Elizabeth back into bed. Poppy tried to catch the older woman’s eye, but couldn’t.

  “Come on,” she said to Delilah, and they left.

  CHAPTER 18

  “I thought you said she was sane.”

  Delilah and Poppy were sitting in the motorcar overlooking Battersea Park, well out of sight of the asylum.

  “She is. She was completely lucid the last time I saw her. She’s been drugged. Today – at the end – she knew who I was.”

  “At the end. It’s the bit in the middle that worries me. All that about the shadow…” Delilah reached up a shaking hand, removed her blonde wig and tossed it on the back seat. “If it’s true, then all these years when I thought my mother had killed herself have been a lie.” Delilah turned to Poppy, tears welling in her eyes. “Do you know what it’s like to lose someone, Poppy?”

  Poppy thought of Christopher. “I do. I lost my brother.”

  “But he didn’t choose to kill himself, did he? He didn’t decide that you, his family, weren’t worth living for, did he?”

  “No,” said Poppy quietly, “he didn’t. But we don’t know if what she’s saying is true.”

  “You said she was sane.”

  “I did. And she is. I really believe that. But that doesn’t mean everything she tells us is the gospel truth. I mean, if it was, that means my aunt or one of her friends is a murderer.”

  “Your aunt couldn’t have done it. She’s in a wheelchair.”

  “No, but Grace isn’t.”

  “Or Frank. Or Sophie. But I can’t imagine any of them hurting my mother. They all loved her. Everyone did.” She stifled a sob. “If Elizabeth’s sane, could she simply be lying?”

  Poppy nodded thoughtfully. “She could be. She wants to get out of that asylum and who knows what she will say to make sure that happens? Or she could simply be confused. She’s been locked up for seven years. And that night – that night at the train yard – she was definitely confused. Everything I’ve heard suggests she was half starved and sick. She could have hallucinated the whole thing.”

  “But what if she didn’t?” asked Delilah. “What if what she’s saying is true? What if one of the Chelsea Six is a murderer?”

  “Then we’ll need to prove it.”

  “How? We only have her word for it. There’s no physical evidence.”

  “Well, actually, there might be…”

  Delilah grabbed Poppy’s shoulder. Poppy winced, but Delilah didn’t notice. “What do you mean? What aren’t you telling me, Poppy? And what was all that about a box?”

  “It’s something that the newspaper’s following up. But I promised my editor I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

  An edge came into Delilah’s voice. “My mother may or may not have been murdered, Poppy. I think I have a right to know.”

  “All right. But you must promise not to tell anyone about it. Particularly my aunt. You know she can’t keep quiet about anything.”

  Delilah nodded gravely. “I promise.”

  Poppy went on to explain about Bert Isaacs and how they found the letter that led to the asylum – and then the ledger page, Richard Easling, Alfie and Melvyn Dorchester and the alleged box.

  “What’s in the box?” asked Delilah.

  “I don’t really know, but whatever it is, it might corroborate Elizabeth’s version of events.”

  “If it exists.”

  “Yes, if it exists. Neither Grace nor Dot remembers anything about it.”

  The Battersea Park clock struck five o’clock. Delilah looked up. “Crikey! Robert’s going to kill me! I promised I’d be back to go over a scene with him.”

  She jumped out of the motorcar and grabbed hold of the crank lever. “I’ll drop you home.”

  “No, it will take too long. You’re on the right side of the river. Just go to the theatre. I’ll get home by myself.” Poppy got out, opened the boot, and took out her overnight case and satchel.

  “Are you sure?” asked Delilah.

  “Yes; just go.”

  Delilah smiled her thanks.

  “And Delilah, don’t worry. We’ll get to the bottom of this. I’ll tell Rollo about it. I’m sure he’ll know what to do.”

  Delilah finished cranking the engine, gave her a brief hug, jumped in the driver’s seat and pulled down her motoring goggles. “All right, we’ll talk about it tomorrow. Toodles!”

  “Toodles,” said Poppy, and waved her friend goodbye.

  An hour later and Poppy was carrying her satchel and little suitcase up Fleet Street. Her whole body was beginning to ache, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to rest until she had had another look at Bert’s files.

  According to the clock outside Barclay’s Bank, it was after six o’clock, so she wasn’t surprised that the front door to The Globe was locked. She went around the back in the hope that the service doors from the alleyway were still open. She wasn’t disappointed. Printers worked in shifts at The Globe, and the new crew were setting up the presses for the next day’s edition. They looked surprised to see Poppy, but didn’t question her as she walked through the basement to the stairwell. But before she left them, she turned and asked, “Were any of you on day shift when Bert Isaacs died?”

  Two men – one approaching retirement age and another, a young apprentice – indicated they had been. She questioned them as to whether or not they had seen anyone come in or out of the basement shortly before or after his fall. They said they hadn’t, but that one of the printing presses had jammed and all hands were needed on deck to fix it. They admitted that someone could have slipped in or out without anyone noticing as they were all distracted by the broken printer at the time.

  “Why are you asking, miss?” asked the older man. “Do you think Bert’s death wasn’t an accident?”

  “Well, the coroner hasn’t given his report yet, so Mr Rolandson and I are just considering the options.”

  She used Rollo’s name to give herself some authority, in case the men questioned her right to ask – or
even to be there. They didn’t. She thanked them and went up the stairs. She stopped on the ground floor and went and stood in the middle of the deserted foyer, where she had been when Bert fell to his death. She looked up into the high-ceilinged atrium and noted that the balustrade on the second floor had finally been fixed. Could Bert simply have leaned on it, exhausted after his efforts to climb the stairs, and fallen through? Or was he pushed?

  She mentally recapped the layout of the building. In the basement, the printing presses. On the ground floor, reception and the typesetting hall. On the first floor, the finance and advertising departments. The second floor was art and photography. The third floor was the morgue archive, and finally the fourth, editorial. But it was the second floor that interested Poppy. She went up there in the lift.

  The art and photography department was the only part of the building she had not yet visited. She stepped out of the lift and went over to the balustrade, noting where it had been repaired. She looked over and down onto the black and white mosaic two floors below. The swirling Egyptian patterns made her feel dizzy. She stepped back. Poor Bert, she thought again. There was nothing else on the second floor other than the double doors to the art and photography department. So if Bert had been pushed, the killer had either to have come from in there or from the lift. Ivan Molanov had heard the lift around the time Bert fell, but that could have been the killer – if there was one – making his or her escape, or, in all the confusion, trying to get to the third floor to steal the Elizabeth Dorchester Jazz File. That was the theory so far. However, no one seemed to have considered the possibility that someone could have come out of the art and photography department, pushed Bert over, then jumped into the lift.

  Daniel had already told her that no one else was on the second floor landing when he came out, hearing Mavis’s scream. That’s when she’d suggested the person might have hidden in the lift. But until now she had never considered that the assailant might have gone back into the department. She walked the few steps across the landing and pushed open the double doors.

  Inside were half a dozen or so desks, some light tables, easels and a long central table with various mock-ups of illustrations. A door at the back of the room was marked “Dark room”. She assumed that was where the photographs were developed. She went in. It was indeed dark, and she felt around for a light switch. As the light came on she saw a number of trays filled with liquid. She didn’t know what any of it was, but by the acrid stench in the air, there were obviously some chemicals in use. Across the small room was strung a clothes line with pegs. But instead of clothing, photographs were hung out to dry. A quick perusal told her they were linked to various stories the paper was working on. But then one of them caught her eye: two young women, dressed to the nines, coming out of Oscar’s jazz club. It was her and Delilah. It must have been when Daniel and Lionel were trying to get a shot of Charlie Chaplin. Gosh, that dress was short! thought Poppy and chuckled to herself.