The Chelsea Murders

by Lionel Davidson

  Everyone in the world was.

  It wasn’t making her sour. She had a quick look at her face to see that it wasn’t. She saw vestigial expressions there – one of faint scorn had just crossed it – that Wertmuller had not had the benefit of. She was almost certain he hadn’t, and it was rather good. She tried it again. She saw Len watching her, and examined her teeth instead.

  ‘Many thanks, old chap,’ Len said. ‘Much appreciate it.’

  He hung up and went out.

  Mooney closed her compact, torn between thoughts of Wertmuller’s fingers and the public neglect of Normanby and the chap who had just earned Len’s appreciation.

  She picked up her phone and called the Globe.

  ‘Chris? Mooney here. Anything doing?’

  ‘Hello, Mary.’ He immediately began talking to someone in the office without even asking her to hang on. Her heart slowly sank. What was it with everything lately? She’d got them a marvellous exclusive. It was practically her story. Was this getting away from her, too? And just because she’d fallen down on a couple of things, Frank and the pregnancy. She’d been certain a few days ago that they would offer her a job. Certain of it …

  ‘Mary, I’m tied up now. Is it anything special?’

  ‘No, I was only wondering –’

  ‘Okay, we’ll call if we need anything.’

  ‘All right,’ Mooney said quietly, and hung up and sat with her stomach turned to lead.

  She thought that the best thing would be to go home and have a bath and get back in bed with the covers over her head.

  Then she thought, no it wouldn’t. What with the general maladjustment of things, she was going to have a treat. She was going to have a look at Wertmuller; a huge ample thing, top to toe and back again. While at it – he was only across the way from Manresa Road – she would look into the library and see what could be done about poor neglected Normanby.

  Neglect, neglect. People could die of it, even the dead.

  *

  She didn’t know what she’d say to Wertmuller, but as it happened she didn’t have to say anything. She walked through to the backroom of Options & Renewals (the option was of selling them stuff or getting them to repair it) and he just rose from his chair, foot after foot of him, with the most glorious smile ever seen on human face.

  ‘Mary,’ he said, ‘oh, Mary, it is so nice to see you.’

  ‘H-h-hello, Otto. I – I –’

  ‘I had no means of getting in touch. I am late last night back from Germany. My father was seriously ill.’

  ‘Oh. Was he? I mean is he –’

  ‘Now, thank God, he is recovered. But all the time, Mary, I thought of you.’

  Oh, well, damn it, Mooney thought. She didn’t know whether to pick a square metre of him and start in kissing or simply pass out on the floor from sheer gratitude. He had a sort of viola in his arms and he put it down and took her hands.

  ‘You have walked in as if to my dream,’ he said.

  Was she hearing aright? She didn’t want to shake her head and clear it because it was fine the way it was. If it was a dream, this was the kind to have.

  ‘Just now I sat and wondered what you must think of me, if perhaps I have queered my – boats?’

  ‘Pitch,’ Mooney said. God! No. You haven’t, Otto. All yours, the whole pitch.

  She wasn’t rightly certain what else he said. In conjunction with that fantastic twinkle in his eye, slightly triste, absolutely bang-on, and his hair, and his whole God-sent self, he was gently kneading her hands with those unbelievable fingers. What was needed was some kind of computer to store, to bank, and then feed back moment after golden moment of it for all her remaining years.

  She didn’t know if it was rash or not, she just damn well invited him to dinner. She wrapped it up somehow, didn’t know what friends he’d made as yet … Shewas only passing, on Press business – And how was that frame that had so interested her?

  He gladly showed her the frame. He had this notion – the newly opened shop had called the paper two or three weeks ago, to milk a bit of publicity – that old picture frames were often finer works of art than those they enclosed. He restored them, and old things generally. He was a very good restorer.

  Oh, boy, and how! Mooney thought, running recklessly across the road towards the library and the restoration of Normanby’s reputation.

  Righto, Normanby! she said to herself. After what you’ve done for me, you’ve got something coming. I’ll see you right, Normanby. I’ll take on the G.L.C., the Government, the U.N., Idi Amin. It’s you and me, Normanby!

  She raced up the two flights like a mountain goat.

  ‘My word, Brenda – your hair!’

  She hadn’t seen the girl lately.

  ‘Don’t you like it?’ Brenda said, nervously touching it.

  ‘Like it? It’s fantastic.’

  ‘Is it? Only nobody’s said anything.’

  ‘Smashing, love. It transforms you.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ Brenda said, transformed, and just stood and breathed for a moment. ‘And I’m going out with a chap tonight,’ she said.

  Mooney well understood that this girl’s basic life urge at the moment was to lay hands on a mirror, but she sped on. ‘I want the listing of Normanby’s old studio – the artist. You’ve got it here somewhere, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes. In Special Collections. You know where it is.’

  ‘Don’t know if I can find it. Is Frank up there?’

  ‘Not yet. I’ll show you, then. That’s funny,’ Brenda said, leading the way. ‘You’re the second this week for that list. We had a detective in here.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  Brenda was so sent by her hair she forgot for a moment that somebody had said Mooney wasn’t to know. Then she remembered it was Frank who’d said it, and she had a rude thought about Frank.

  Mooney was so sent by Wertmuller that she didn’t all at once take in what had been said.

  When she did, and between proffering her compact and the odd word on hair, she unravelled what had gone on.

  Later, alone with the list, she sat and quietly marvelled at how things went, when they went for you.

  She thought of heavenly Otto and the job on the Globe, both, less than an hour ago, apparently lost to her.

  She stationed Wertmuller in a portion of her mind convenient for later attention, and bent to the list.

  It took only a few lightning swings round the battlefield to see where the panzers had to go in.

  When she left the library she had the dope on Normanby and some other dope.

  One of the troubles with the Globe, she thought, was that they didn’t know how to treat a girl right. Call her when needed, would they? There were other fish in the sea. She knew how a certain percentage of them, in the region of a hundred per cent, would react to what she had to offer.

  Pow!

  She had no intention of offering yet. Certain subjects needed a little coaxing; subjects like Wertmuller came in this class.

  Mooney made a couple of purchases at nearby shops and sprang lithely up to her flat opposite the post office before resuming serious work.

  That was at about eleven.

  12

  SOON after half-past two, when the envelope and its contents went in to Warton, he lost himself in a cloud of smoke and brooded. His standing instructions in any major inquiry were that all letters for his HQ should be delivered immediately by special messenger from local post offices, and this one had been.

  It had been mailed at the main post office in the King’s Road. It had slipped down the chute from the external box some time between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m., but because it was the lunch hour, and staff short, the exact time couldn’t be established.

  He had the material copied and the originals sent for specialist examination, and by three o’clock had dispatched Mason to the library.

  Mason was driven round in solitary grandeur, and mounted right away to the second floor.

  ‘If I wante
d to look up some lines of a poem,’ he said to the bird, ‘how would I go about it?’

  ‘Have you got the poet’s name?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh. Over here, then.’ She took him to Dictionaries and pointed out the volumes of quotations.

  ‘What’s the poem about?’ she said.

  ‘Suppose it was the moon.’

  She took down an Oxford. ‘Well, you just look up this index at the back,’ she said, ‘and there you are. Moon.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Mason said.

  He waited till she’d gone and looked up lilies.

  A close-packed column on lilies.

  Lilies.

  Beauty lives though l. die. 208:9.

  He went down the column.

  Three l. in her hand. 410:7.

  He turned to page 410, quotation 7.

  The blessed damozel leaned out

  From the gold bar of heaven;

  Her eyes were deeper than the depth

  Of waters stilled at even;

  She had three lilies in her hand,

  And the stars in her hair were seven.

  The name of the poem was ‘The Blessed Damozel’, and the poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

  Mason copied all this, replaced the book, and took off.

  *

  By half-past three Warton was snouting through ‘The Blessed Damozel’.

  ‘Gold bar, sir,’ Summers said.

  ‘Ng.’

  ‘Waters stilled at even.’

  ‘Well aware of it, Summers.’ He thought if Summers kept pointing out possible allusions to The Gold Key and the nocturnal Thames, he’d do for him.

  Some clever bastard was having them on here. Some clever literary bastard. The message, envelope, type, cartridge paper, were still with the experts; nothing at all to feed on except his own yellow rage.

  ‘Any further thoughts, Mason?’ he said.

  They’d already been through it. The lad swore he’d told nobody. Bloody obvious his idea had got out somewhere. Warton had spotted the loophole himself, and waited for the lad to spot it. He knew Summers wouldn’t. Summers didn’t. Lad did.

  ‘Well, it could have got out through the library, sir.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘The girl saw my warrant card. Though I only asked for the list, sir.’

  ‘Who could gather anything from that?’

  ‘Perhaps – this fellow Colbert-Greer?’ Mason said slowly.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Well, he might have been reading about these murders, and if she mentioned a detective had asked for the list – could have looked at it himself, made the same connection. He was working there, after all. So was this coloured bloke, the one interested in police records.’

  ‘Were they there when you were?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What do you think, then?’

  Saw him make the next leap. ‘Well, if they were regulars, the girl might have had friendly relations with them.’

  ‘Think she has?’

  ‘Worth looking into, sir.’

  Yes. He’d do.

  ‘Go to it,’ Warton said.

  *

  Summers and Mason saw the chief librarian together in his small office. After a preliminary chat, Brenda was called in.

  It was twenty-to five by this time, and she’d just been to the rest room to give her hair a touch. The library closed at five on Wednesdays, and she was meeting the chap at Sloane Square at quarter-past.

  ‘These gentlemen are from the police, Brenda,’ the librarian said. ‘They’d like to ask you a few questions.’

  She saw Mason nodding at her, and her heart turned over. She thought immediately of Frank and his horrid’sniff-sniff remarks, and she knew it was to do with him.

  ‘Oh, yes?’ she said.

  ‘Sit down, dear.’

  She sat down, a bit wobbly.

  She’d actually planned to get off a bit early. Didn’t want to keep the chap waiting. First time she’d been out with him.

  ‘I expect you remember Mr Mason here.’ It was the tall gaunt one talking. ‘Came in first a couple of days ago.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you remember what he wanted then?’

  ‘A list of plaques, wasn’t it, of famous residents?’

  Mason just nodded at her; didn’t say anything.

  ‘Did you mention that to anyone?’

  ‘I might have done,’ she said.

  ‘It’s rather important,’ the gaunt one said. ‘There wouldn’t be anything wrong in it, no reason why you shouldn’t.’

  ‘Well.’ She made a pretence of thinking. All she could think of was horrible Frank, twirling his beads.

  Bit by bit, she let it slip out, keeping it quite ladylike. The chief librarian wouldn’t think she was getting off with the readers, would he? Thank God, he was nodding approvingly at her. The others just watched and listened. They made her go over it again and again: who’d been in the pub circle; what talk there had been about the list, what questions asked.

  She saw that it was two minutes to five, and then, oh God, two minutes after, and they were still going on. She didn’t like to mention her date, not after this particular pub date.

  ‘And that’s absolutely all that happened?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  Five-past five. And she absolutely had to have a wee after all this.

  ‘And you didn’t mention it to anyone else?’

  ‘Oh, no.’

  ‘Well, I think that’s about all. I’d be glad if you wouldn’t mention it elsewhere for the time being.’

  ‘Oh, you won’t do that, Brenda, will you?’ the chief librarian said.

  ‘Oh, no!’ Brenda said, renouncing all sin.

  ‘Well, thank you, dear.’

  She hared off to the loo, made short work of that, grabbed her bag and coat and was in the King’s Road like a jet. God above, it was nearly quarter-past! Taxi fare was a lunch, but she saw an empty one and threw herself in. ‘Sloane Square!’

  In the cab she had a quick look at her face and licked up her lipstick and gave her hair a bit of a touch. In the same moment she remembered that she had told someone else.

  Well, damn it, they weren’t interested in Mary, and if they were – twenty-past five! – they could jolly well go and do something a bit rude.

  *

  There had been several sets of fingerprints on the envelope – which Warton knew would lead nowhere at all – but none on the cartridge paper. The paper-makers hadn’t yet been identified, but the Letraset people were compiling a list of customers who had taken the rather unusual type style. In general, it was used by advertising agencies, graphics studios and art schools. But more information would come from the wholesale stationers, whom they also supplied, and who in turn supplied shops selling artists’ materials, several of which were in the King’s Road.

  The list of Famous Residents had apparently been circulated in an edition of fifty copies. Warton skipped the various civic authorities who had it, and concentrated on those with public access. There were not very many.

  He wrote out the general assignment, and sent it through to Summers. As head of the Incident Room, it was Summers’s job to break it down and allot the work.

  After this, and in an unusual mood of good cheer, Warton thought he would have an early night. In the hellish reaches of the afternoon, an amazingly good idea had come to him.

  He thought he’d keep the idea to himself for the time being.

  He gave a gruff ‘G’night’ to the Incident Room and took himself off.

  He could see the scenario of his idea in its tiniest portions, and all of it looked good. Apart from the scenario, he could also see his plate, so lately piled high with mountains of unlooked-for crap.

  Long years at his job had made Warton familiar with its unpleasant patterns. All the way to Sanderstead he visualized the extra crap now undoubtedly being created for him by the spry and imaginative chefs of Fleet Street.

  Yes, best of
luck, Warton wished them, turning cheerfully into his drive.

  13

  ‘BY way of starters,’ Jack said, ‘I’d like to spring this on Friday. Nothing doing on Saturday. Then depending on how the Sundays play it – number two. For Monday, perhaps Tuesday.’

  Number two was headed THE SIEGE OF CHELSEA. The two men were studying roughs in the editor’s office. Jack was secretive about the roughs. He’d taken them out of a drawer after the editorial conference was over and the other departmental heads had left.

  It was now Thursday and they were through with the earthquake. A few hundred were being added daily to the death toll but there was no excitement in the streets on the latest score.

  Next week was national maniac week; it was obvious.

  ‘What basically worries me,’ Chris said, ‘is not to blow it too early.’

  ‘Which?’

  ‘The Siege.’

  ‘Yes. It’s a beaut, isn’t it?’ Jack said.

  A pencil-sketched policeman stood all down the left-hand side of the page; evidently in an alley in lamplight. His helmet was turned steadfastly towards the huge headline. Above it, a two-line strap outlined the gravity of what he was watching.

  ‘Wednesday or Thursday,’ Jack mused, ‘would definitely be better. Allow the story to build. Too risky, though. It’s our siege at the moment. Which means playing this one rather close.’

  He was tapping number one. This one just said SCOTLAND YARD BAFflED. There were four photos; three of the recent dead, and a larger one of the man looking into the deaths.

  ‘It’s the nutter theory, is it?’ Chris said anxiously.

  ‘Oh, yes. Great piece from the shrink, by the way. We’ll need plenty of supporting ideas.’

  ‘Yes. The snag there,’ Chris said, ‘is that there aren’t any. No actual hard stuff, you see, Jack.’

  ‘That definitely isn’t our fault. If they’re not putting it out, we’ll make them. If they haven’t got it, why haven’t they?’

  ‘Well, true, but –’

  ‘I mean, what are we expressing but the general anxiety people must be feeling? If the Yard is worried – Christ, so am I. I as reader. I mean, what’s happening? Plenty to go for, surely?’