He crossed the King’s Road, passing a tall nineteenth-century building in which the name of a school for boys had been engraved in the red-brick facade; but the school had been closed since the evacuation of children from the capital at the beginning of the war and had now been taken over by the council’s emergency housing department. Strange, Trave thought, the Victorians’ faith in the permanence of their institutions, a naive arrogance that two world wars had destroyed forever.
It was still too early in the morning for the housing office to be open, but already a line of families had formed a queue snaking back past the bus stop. Trave knew who they were. You could tell from the pushcarts and prams piled high with their remaining possessions — pots and pans and teddy bears, all that they had been able to salvage from the wreckage of their bombed-out homes. It was a nightmare existence they led, these urban dispossessed, shunted from one rest centre to another, surviving on inadequate rations until they were finally found somewhere to live, often in an area far removed from their previous home, where they knew nobody and nobody knew them.
Trave hurried past and made his way through the backstreets to South Kensington Underground, where the platforms had already been cleared of the hundreds who took shelter there every night. Every wall was covered with government information posters, ordering citizens to do this and not do that: look out in the blackout; we need your kitchen waste; the enemy is listening — careless talk costs lives. Was that what had cost Albert Morrison his life? Trave wondered as he waited for his train. Talking to the wrong man because he was in too much of a hurry?
Trave emerged out of the Underground into the morning light and began walking down the Broadway, knocking on doors. There was no response from an import-export company that looked as if it had seen better days — unsurprising with the U-boats wreaking havoc on the country’s merchant shipping — and the building next door was a bank, which wasn’t what he was looking for. However, the one beyond seemed like a possibility: tall and wide and grey, with a flat, featureless facade and blacked-out windows on every floor.
An old man answered the door, dressed in a grey overall that reached below his knees. He was thin almost to the point of being skeletal.
‘I’m a detective,’ said Trave, producing his warrant card. ‘I’m making some enquiries. It’s about a murder that happened yesterday — over in Battersea.’
The old man said nothing, didn’t even glance at the warrant card. He just stood blocking the doorway, waiting to hear what else Trave had to say.
‘The dead man was called Albert Morrison. We think he may have come here, and we need to know why and whom he spoke to.’ Trave noticed a definite reaction on the old man’s face to the name, but it was gone too quickly to tell whether it was one of pain or pleasure.
‘Well, dead or alive, ’e didn’t speak to me,’ said the old man. ‘I’m the one who opens the door and the only people who came ’ere yesterday were the people that have got a right to be ’ere — the people who work ’ere.’
‘What work? What goes on here?’ asked Trave, his curiosity aroused by the old man’s unnecessary rudeness.
‘None of your business,’ said the old man, beginning to close the door.
But Trave was too quick for him. He put his foot out and pushed the door back with his hand. The old man took a step back, looking furious.
‘Do you live here?’ Trave asked.
But the old man ignored his question. ‘I’m calling security,’ he said, but he made no move away from the door.
‘All right, I’ll take that as a no,’ said Trave. ‘The man I’m talking about — he came here late in the afternoon, so maybe you’d already gone home. Maybe someone else answered the door.’
The old man looked Trave up and down for a moment and then seemed to come to a decision. ‘I’ll check the book,’ he said grudgingly. ‘You wait ’ere.’
This time Trave did not stop the old man from shutting the door. He waited patiently on the step, resisting the temptation to knock again. Something told him that the old man might be cantankerous and unpleasant but that he was no liar — if he said he was going to check the book, then that was what he would do. Several minutes later, he was proved right when the door opened and the old man reappeared.
‘There were no visitors yesterday before or after I left,’ he said with sour satisfaction, turning to go.
But Trave hadn’t finished. ‘Does a man called Thorn work here?’ he asked. ‘Middle-aged, balding, no glasses-’
‘I know what ’e looks like,’ said the old man, interrupting.
‘Is he here? I need to see him.’
‘That’ll depend on if ’e wants to see you,’ the old man said laconically. ‘You’d better come in, I suppose.’
The old man stepped aside and Trave went past him into a wide, dimly lit entrance hall. There was a threadbare colourless carpet on the floor, and the walls, void of pictures, were badly in need of a coat of paint. There were several doors on either side, but they were all closed and probably locked, Trave thought, noticing the large bunch of keys attached to the old man’s waistband. Maybe one of them contained the visitors’ book, Trave speculated, but the old man didn’t ask him to sign anything. Instead he pointed to a hard-backed chair set against one of the walls; told Trave to wait, speaking in the same peremptory tone he’d used outside; and then went up the staircase at the back of the hall. Trave could hear the sound of the old man’s knee joints cracking even after he’d disappeared from view.
The sound faded away and then, after an interval of several minutes, began again — the old man was coming back down the stairs. But immediately there was the sound of quicker feet, and a man who matched Mrs Graves’s description was the first to appear in the hall. He looked tired and preoccupied, and his clothes were just as crumpled as she’d described them.
Trave got up and held out his hand, which Thorn took absently for a moment. ‘I’m Detective Trave,’ he said. ‘Are you-’
‘Thorn. Yes. Alec Thorn. Jarvis here said you wanted to see me. I haven’t got long, I’m afraid. I’ve got a lot of work to do today.’
‘Do you know a man called Albert Morrison?’
‘Yes. Why do you ask?’
‘Did you go and see him yesterday — at his flat in Battersea?’
Thorn paused, not answering. His eyes flickered over to the old man, who was standing listening to them at the bottom of the stairs. Trave had noted the look of interest in the old man’s eyes as well as Thorn’s when he’d mentioned Albert’s name.
‘We’d better go in here, I think,’ said Thorn, opening a door halfway down the hall — Trave had been wrong about them being locked. ‘That’ll be all, Jarvis,’ he added, shutting the old man out once Trave had gone past him into the room.
It was a small, primitive kind of waiting room. Two rows of armless, hard-backed chairs faced a wall on which a photograph of the King in his coronation robes hung slightly askew. There were no windows and there was no fire. Neither man sat down — Thorn stood with his back to the door, facing Trave.
‘I know you went there,’ Trave said quietly. ‘Mrs Graves, the neighbour downstairs, says she saw you. You left a note that she gave to Mr Morrison when he returned from a walk in the park, and after he got it he became agitated and came over here in a taxi. Did you see him here yesterday, Mr Thorn? I need to know.’
‘No. No, I didn’t,’ said Thorn adamantly. ‘What’s this about, Detective? You can’t come in here asking questions without telling me why. Has something happened to Albert?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so. He died last night. I’m here because he was murdered-’
‘Murdered!’ Thorn looked thunderstruck and his face collapsed as if under the impact of a blow for which he had been entirely unprepared. He turned away, putting up his hand as if to ward off further attack, and then staggered to a chair and sat down.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Trave. He hadn’t been prepared for the intensity of Thorn’s reaction to the
news.
‘Murdered!’ Thorn repeated the word, shaking his head to express his incredulity. ‘How?’
‘He was pushed over the balustrade outside his flat. His daughter saw him fall.’
‘Ava was there. My God! Did she see who did it?’
‘No, it was too dark. Could you please tell me how you knew Mr Morrison?’ Trave asked.
‘We were friends. We’ve been friends a long time. Oh God, poor Albert,’ he added, his voice cracking. He put a cigarette in his mouth but couldn’t light it because his hands were shaking too much. Trave had to help him with the match.
He inhaled deeply and then collapsed in a fit of coughing. The smoke filled up the airless, windowless room and Trave was tempted to open the door for ventilation, except that he suspected Jarvis was on the other side listening.
‘How did you become friends?’ asked Trave. ‘Did you work together?’
‘Yes, we used to.’
‘Here?’
Thorn nodded.
‘And what kind of work was that, if you don’t mind me asking?’
‘I do, as a matter of fact,’ said Thorn. ‘It’s confidential.’
‘Well, perhaps you can help me with this, then: Why did you go and see Mr Morrison yesterday afternoon?’
Thorn didn’t reply right away, and Trave pulled out one of the chairs and sat down, willing to wait for an answer. Thorn seemed to have got over his original shock and was looking carefully at Trave through the haze of his cigarette smoke. It was almost as if he were assessing the policeman, seeing how far he could trust him.
‘I’m going to need an answer, Mr Thorn,’ said Trave quietly. ‘I need to know why he made that taxi journey and whom he came here to see. Confidentiality won’t wash, I’m afraid. This is a murder inquiry.’
‘It was a friendly call. That’s all. I hadn’t seen Albert in a couple of months and I wanted to see if he was all right.’
Trave was sure Thorn was lying. Yet the man’s surprise and grief when he’d heard the news of Morrison’s death had seemed genuine. It didn’t add up.
‘What about the note that you left him? What did that say? …
‘What did it say?’ asked Trave, repeating his question when Thorn didn’t answer. ‘I need to know.’
‘Nothing — just that I’d called and that I wanted to see him. Have you got it?’ Trave noted how Thorn mumbled his answer but then raised his voice when he asked his own question. There was an urgency there that sounded almost like desperation.
Trave shook his head. He hadn’t got Thorn’s note and he was damned if he was going to show Thorn the note in Morrison’s handwriting that he’d found in the dead man’s pocket. Not when Thorn was being so evasive. Trave decided to go on the attack.
‘You’re not telling me the truth,’ he said. ‘Do you really expect me to believe that you left a note saying nothing at all when receipt of that note made Mr Morrison so agitated that he got straight in a taxi and rushed over here?’
‘How do you know he was agitated? How can you know that?’ asked Thorn, looking agitated himself.
‘Because his daughter told us. She was there when he got the note. She was the one who ordered the taxi.’
‘Oh, poor Ava. It’s too awful,’ said Thorn, sounding genuinely distressed. ‘She must be in a terrible state. I ought to go and see her.’
‘What was in the note, Mr Thorn?’ asked Trave, refusing to be distracted by Thorn’s emotional outburst.
‘Nothing — I already told you that.’
‘And you’ll swear to that, will you?’
‘If I have to,’ Thorn said grimly.
‘And you didn’t see Albert Morrison here yesterday or anywhere else?’
‘No. If he came here, I didn’t see him. I swear it,’ said Thorn, looking Trave in the eye.
‘All right,’ said Trave. ‘I’ve got nothing else for now, but here’s my card. If you decide you want to be any more forthcoming, you’ll know where to reach me. And if you don’t, I’ll be back. You can count on that,’ he added as he went out the door.
But then out in the hall, another question occurred to Trave. He hesitated and then turned on his heel and went back in the room. Thorn had stood up and appeared to be wiping his eyes with a crumpled red handkerchief.
‘What is it, Detective?’ he asked, looking annoyed. ‘I thought you said you were done here.’
‘Just one more question,’ said Trave. ‘Do you know anyone called Hayrick?’
‘Hayrick? No, nobody. It doesn’t sound like a name at all.’
‘No, you’re right. It doesn’t,’ said Trave. He nodded reflectively and left.
Back at Scotland Yard, Quaid listened distractedly to Trave’s account of his interview with Mrs Graves the previous evening and then interrupted his subordinate just as Trave had begun to describe Thorn’s evasiveness when questioned about his visit to Battersea the previous day.
‘Whose investigation is this?’ he asked, glowering at Trave.
‘Yours, of course. I just thought we should follow up what happened in the afternoon …’
‘You thought,’ Quaid repeated sarcastically. ‘I don’t know who you think you are — running round London wherever the fancy takes you! Check with me next time. All right?’
Trave nodded, and Quaid decided not to push the point. There was no need to create unnecessary hostility. Trave had done well with the victim’s daughter the previous evening. He could be an asset if he could just learn to toe the line.
‘How do you know this Thorn character wasn’t telling you the truth?’ he asked. ‘Why shouldn’t he go and see an old friend and leave a note to say he’d called?’
‘No reason,’ said Trave evenly. ‘But if that was all it was, it doesn’t explain Morrison’s rushing across town in a taxi …’
‘All right, maybe he did want to see Thorn, but that doesn’t mean Thorn murdered him. Didn’t you say Thorn seemed genuinely upset when you told him about Morrison’s death?’
‘Yes, I know — it doesn’t add up,’ said Trave with a frown. ‘It’s just I think we need to find out more — about what Morrison’s job was; about what’s going on over there.’
‘What did you say the address was?’
‘Fifty-nine Broadway.’
‘I’ll look into it. It’s probably some kind of government office, which is why Thorn’s keeping quiet about it,’ said Quaid. ‘The Home Office is just around the corner from there, isn’t it?’
Trave nodded, looking unconvinced. ‘What about the note?’ he said.
‘What note?’
‘The one in Morrison’s pocket, the one asking for the written report-’
‘Well, it doesn’t incriminate Thorn, does it? You were the one who saw it was in Morrison’s handwriting. And, you know, the point is maybe we’re never going to find out what that note means because we haven’t got the time or the resources in the middle of the Blitz to go up every blind alley, particularly when the solution to the case is staring us in the bloody eye,’ Quaid said impatiently. He paused a moment as if for effect and then leant across his desk. ‘It turns out that Dr Bertram Brive is up to his neck in debts. Without the money he’s hoping to get from old Morrison, he’ll be bankrupt by Christmas.’
‘How do you know?’ asked Trave.
‘It wasn’t difficult — I phoned up his bank. The manager there told me they had him in last week because they were calling in his overdraft. He stopped making payments in the summer, apparently.’
‘Do they know why?’
‘The bank manager thinks he’s a gambler. I’ve got Twining out making enquiries. I’d have sent you if you hadn’t been otherwise engaged,’ he added.
‘But Brive’s got a business,’ said Trave, ignoring the dig. ‘Doctors must be in even more demand than we are these days.’
‘Only if they want to work, and I’d bet my last pound that Brive doesn’t — which isn’t such a bad thing, actually,’ said Quaid with a harsh laugh. ‘From what I s
aw of him last night, I’d say that the man’s got the bedside manner of a Nazi. He’s the one who gave the old man the heave-ho, you mark my words. It’s just a question of finding the evidence. And that’s where we need to concentrate our efforts from now on,’ Quaid added, giving his subordinate a sharp look.
CHAPTER 5
‘Anyone would think that you’re enjoying this.’
The sound of Ava’s voice cutting in on him as he replaced the telephone receiver made Bertram jump — it was the first comment she’d addressed to him all day. And the day before hadn’t been much better. She’d followed him around the flat from the time he got up until the time he went to bed, staring at him while he was talking to her and then saying nothing in response. He couldn’t tell what she was feeling — grief or anger or both, perhaps. She’d never behaved like this before, and it made him nervous.
‘Enjoying what?’ he asked. He had no idea what she was talking about.
‘My father’s funeral — making the arrangements, organizing the stupid flowers, transporting his body round town, getting to the church on time. You know what I mean, Bertie. Don’t pretend you don’t.’
‘Of course I’m not enjoying it,’ he said angrily. ‘But someone has to do it, and you didn’t show any signs of wanting to get involved.’
‘What’s the point? He made you his executor, didn’t he?’
‘I think he just thought it would be easier that way,’ he said defensively. ‘I know how these things work.’
‘What? Because of your job, you mean? The job that you don’t do.’ Ava’s bitterness was obvious.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You know damn well what I mean. You know how you sit at home all day, neglecting your patients, listening to news bulletins on the radio, poring over old copies of The Times, moving your stupid pins around on that map over there like the war’s some stupid game made up for your amusement, like you think you’re contributing to it in some way.’ Ava’s voice rose as she jabbed her finger at a large map of Europe taped to the kitchen wall. And then silent suddenly, she looked over at her husband on the other side of the table as if assessing his likely reaction, then reached up violently and pulled the map down, tearing it through the centre as it fell. A cascade of coloured pins rolled away in every direction across the lino floor.
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