Joe could only mutter incoherent condolences.
‘Sorry, old chap – you’ve missed this boat! But, hang on a minute . . . if it’s maturity and experience that stokes the old boiler, I’m sure my aunt Cécile . . . she’s French, you know . . . would . . .’
He droned on and Joe prayed for Tilly’s swift return.
Half an hour later, and just as the menus were being offered, Tilly was struck by a headache so debilitating it called for an instant return home. Sunk in the seclusion of the back seat of a taxi they looked at each other and laughed with relief.
‘Sorry, sir! I couldn’t bear to sit and watch Monty socking back the oysters.’
‘Damn it! No ear-nibbling smoochy last dance for me!’ grumbled Joe.
‘And we never did manage to hear the band play us out with “Three O’Clock In The Morning”! Do you really mind?’
‘No. Their licence runs out at two. I’d have had to arrest the management. Glad to have missed it,’ said Joe. ‘Sing it for you if you like?’
Joe recounted his talk with Mathurin, ending with, ‘. . . so if you hear on your social grapevine that a certain police commander is a degenerate who’s run off to Antibes with Mathurin’s frisky old aunt, you are to squash the rumour at once!’
‘If I can do that without compromising my own reputation, I certainly will, sir. But it looks as though Monty’s in the clear. I got Joanna to tell me all about that evening – no difficulty – she was spilling over with enthusiasm for the intrigue, and all she had to say confirms Mathurin’s story. Just one little extra detail I found quite intriguing.’
‘Go on, Westhorpe.’
‘Well, do you remember Sergeant Armitage was convinced that the Dame signalled to someone across the room before she left to go upstairs?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Joanna knows who it was!’
Chapter Fifteen
Their taxi was turning into Park Lane and Joe was suddenly aware that time and opportunity were slipping away from him, the case already beyond his control. He leaned forward. ‘Slow down, cabby, will you?’
It wasn’t the first time the driver had received the command. He grinned and obligingly began to hug the kerb, moving along at ten miles an hour.
‘Good idea, sir. We’re nearly home. You could come in if you like but I wouldn’t advise it. My father always waits up. He’s got a little list of men he perhaps won’t set the dogs on just yet and you’ve been added to it. In fact you’ve moved up to a jolly high position. He tells me he “likes the cut of your jib” or something. Thought I’d better warn you.’
‘I’m on quite a few lists,’ said Joe lightly. ‘I’ve got very slick at smooth take-offs down driveways. I particularly favour the laurel-lined ones.’
Tilly reached for his hand and squeezed it. ‘Goodness, you’re easy company, Joe,’ she said softly.
‘It was Joanna,’ she went on hurriedly.
‘Joanna? What was Joanna?’ Joe’s senses were still reeling from the sudden show of warmth and – could he have been mistaken? – affection.
‘The recipient of the Dame’s signal was Joanna herself.’
‘Eh? But why on earth . . .?’
‘My friend may look as though she’s sculpted out of the same stuff as a sugar mouse but don’t be deceived!’
‘I expect hobnobbing with Monty would open a girl’s eyes to the world?’
‘Well, Joanna’s not averse to a little hobnobbing from time to time but not with Monty.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She told me she’s been keeping him dangling. No hanky-panky before marriage. She’s quite cold, you know, tough and rather businesslike. Monty may not look much of a catch to you but, believe me, he’s not despised in the matrimonial stakes. He’s got a title and expectations of something even grander when his grandfather dies. And the old boy is rumoured to be on the rocks and breaking up fast. Monty’s got connections on the Joliffe side as well and there’s money there.’
‘He’ll be needing it! The cad’s got expensive and dangerous tastes.’
‘Yes. I got a feeling that all may not be quite as it seems with the Mathurin finances . . . I was offered a close look at her engagement ring. It was big but old-fashioned. I’d say he’d pinched it from his granny not offered Joanna her choice of the sparklers on display at Asprey’s.’
Joe wondered for a moment how he was going to manage without Westhorpe’s female insights and her unique access to the powder rooms of London.
‘But Joanna’s tale backs up Audrey’s version of Dame Bea’s proclivities, sir. She was prepared to have quite a laugh about it. She wouldn’t have shared the confidence with most girls but she knows what I do and assumes I’m not about to have a fit of the vapours at the revelation. During the party Beatrice joined them and made herself very agreeable to Joanna. She must have seen something in the girl that Joanna is not admitting (to me at any rate) is there because she made a louche suggestion. She invited Joanna to come up to her room. Right there in front of Monty! Joanna can’t be certain that he didn’t overhear but he made no comment.’
‘So the Dame flung her a last come-on, vampish look from the door and disappeared. No wonder Armitage missed it. He was scanning the blokes for a reaction! Explains why she left her door unlocked if not open, perhaps even called an excited, “Do come in!” to her killer,’ said Joe with a shudder.
‘But who came through the door? Cousin Monty seeing red and prepared to wield a poker to avenge his fiancée’s honour? I can’t see it, sir. Even if he could have got away unseen from the party.’
‘Not for honour. I don’t believe Monty would wield so much as a fish-knife for honour. Oh, Lord! We’re here! All lights on, I see. A moment, cabby . . . Look, Tilly, no notes, remember! This was an entirely unofficial evening. But most enjoyable . . .’
He would have said more but she turned to him and put a finger firmly over his lips. ‘I had a wonderful time! Goodnight, Joe.’ A swift kiss on his left cheek and she was gone.
He sat on, wrapped in disturbing thoughts and wishing he hadn’t drunk so much champagne.
‘Where to now, sir?
The cabby’s tactful question stirred him to say decisively, ‘Scotland Yard. The Derby Street entrance.’
‘Young lady nicked your watch in that last clinch, did she, sir?’
Joe laughed. ‘No. Not my watch.’ As though to double-check, he ostentatiously consulted his wristwatch. Well after eleven. What the hell did he think he could achieve at this late hour, boiling his brains over a stillborn case? He thought there might be waiting on his desk a delivery of notes from Cottingham who’d been sent off with a day’s steady police work under his belt before the axe had fallen. Joe was feeling too agitated to go straight home and he didn’t have the effrontery to face Maisie’s sharp tongue and knowing comments in his evening dress with lipstick on his left cheek and reeking of champagne and cigars. An hour’s clandestine work would steady his jumping thoughts. Scotland Yard never slept. Lights were on from top to bottom of the building when he left the taxi. The uniformed man at the entrance saluted him and waved him through. As he passed the reception desk on his way to the stairs, he was hailed urgently by the duty sergeant.
‘Sir! Commander Sandilands! This is a piece of luck! We’ve been trying to get hold of you. Something’s come up. All too literally, sir! There’s a couple of river police here won’t go away until they’ve seen you.’
Joe approached the desk in puzzlement and the sergeant opened the office door behind him calling, ‘Alf! George! Got him! He’s all yours.’
Alf and George slammed down mugs of cocoa, bustled out of the office and stood, giving him a slow police stare. They were wearing their river slickers and naval-style peaked caps and very purposeful they looked. The leader glanced uncertainly from Joe back to the duty officer, who swallowed a grin and said, ‘Yes. This is who you’ve been waiting to interview. Commander Sandilands.’
‘Off duty,’ Joe mutte
red, aware that he looked as though he’d just strolled off-stage from his bit-part in a society farce at the Lyric. ‘Sandilands it is. Tell me what I can do for you.’
‘What you can do for us is identify a corpse, sir. It’s down at the sub-station by Waterloo Bridge. It’s a fresh one – only been in the water an hour at the most. A suicide.’
‘I’d like to help, of course,’ said Joe, stifling his irritation. ‘But suicides are not my department. Can’t you just go through your usual channels?’
The last thing he wanted was to be lured away to that stinking hole down by the bridge. The river police, the only arm of the service the people of London had ever really taken to their hearts, were a force Joe could admire too but he wanted nothing to do with them this evening. As well as coming down hard on theft, piracy and smuggling in the docks they managed also to patrol the sinister reaches of the Thames which were favoured as the last resting place of unfortunates driven to take their own lives. Sometimes the three-man crews were so quickly on the spot in their swift river launches that bodies were netted and fished out before they’d breathed their last, and in that cold, stone, carbolic-scented little room by the arches they would squeeze and pummel the victim laid out on the canvas truckle bed until, willing or not, the dank river water spewed out of the lungs to be replaced with the breath of life.
‘Regular channels no use, sir. It’s you we have to see. Just to take a look at the body before it goes off to the morgue. Won’t take you a minute and it will save us hours.’
‘Why me?’ Joe shivered. The evening’s euphoria had evaporated, leaving him full of cold foreboding.
‘No identification to be found, sir. No documents, no labels on clothing, nothing at all. Except for one item in her pocket.’
‘Her pocket?’
‘Deceased is a young female, sir.’
He fumbled under his cape and held up a small white object.
‘We were lucky we got there before the printer’s ink ran. You can just make it out.’ He read from the card: ‘“Commander Joseph Sandilands, New Scotland Yard, London. Whitehall 1212.”
‘It’s your calling card, sir.’
Chapter Sixteen
For a moment, Joe’s face and limbs froze. When finally he found his voice it rapped out with military precision: ‘Waterloo Bridge. We’ll never get a taxi at this time of night. Half a mile from here? We can run it in five minutes.’
He was sprinting out of the door before the river police had pulled themselves together. They pounded after him, boots thumping, capes flying.
As the door swung to behind them, the duty sergeant caught the eye of a passing constable who’d loitered to witness the strange scene. ‘’Struth! That got him moving! D’you see his face when the penny dropped? Wonder how many girls the old fart’s given his card to lately?’
‘Sounds like a case of unrequited affection to me,’ commented the bobby sentimentally. ‘Probably got some poor girl up the stick.’
Joe pounded along the Embankment, evening shoes giving him a perilous grip on the wet pavings. He looked ahead through the half-grown trees lining the river to the shimmering line of pale yellow lamps studding the bridge along its great length. Cleopatra’s Needle. More than halfway there. He tore off his tie and cracked open his collar. He pushed on, glad to hear his escort panting and cursing close behind.
Three young females. He’d given his card to three and that only yesterday. With dread he listed them. ‘Audrey, Melisande . . . And her baby . . .’ His heart gave a lurch which threatened to cut off his breathing as he added, ‘Little Dorcas.’
He could have asked the sergeant one simple question which would have reduced the choice to one: blonde, auburn or black hair? He knew very well why he’d not asked. One answer from the list would have been more than he could bear and he could not risk showing emotion right there at the reception desk.
It must be Dorcas, he decided. Driven to distraction by her grandmother’s cruelty she’d run away to London, swelling the numbers of waifs and strays who fetched up on the cold streets of the capital in their thousands. He’d been kind to her. Armitage had paid her flattering attention. Perhaps she’d been trying to contact one of them? He ran on. Without a word spoken, they all stopped and, hands on knees, gasping for breath, they tried to gain a measure of control before they entered the dismal little rescue room. The older of the two officers flung him a wounded look. ‘It’s all right, sir. She’s not going anywhere, whoever she is. Five minutes is neither here nor there for the deceased.’
‘It’s a bloody eternity for me,’ said Joe with passion.
A tug hooted mournfully, echoing his words. A sickening stench of decay belched from the ooze below. It was low tide and several yards of stinking mud fringed the sinister black slide of the river.
‘Let’s get on with it, shall we?’
They exchanged looks, nodded and went inside.
A third river officer was sitting over his tea, a brimming ashtray on the floor at his feet, filling in the crossword on the back of the Evening Standard. He shot to attention as they entered. In the centre of the room on a still-dripping truckle bed lay a white-shrouded figure. The cocktail of carbolic and Wimsol bleach was almost a relief after the river smells. As Joe advanced to lift the sheet he started in horror to hear a voice behind him intoning:
‘One more unfortunate,
Weary of breath,
Rashly importunate,
Gone to her death!
Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care,
Fashioned so slenderly,
Young and so fair!’
Joe turned and addressed the sergeant angrily. ‘Who or what in hell is that?’
The sergeant’s voice was a placatory whisper. ‘Witness, sir. He was on the bridge when she jumped.’
A bear-like figure shambled forward into the light shed by the solitary electric bulb and presented himself.
‘He’s a down-and-out, sir. Harmless. We know him well. Came forward with information and we asked him to stay in case a statement was required. Name of Arthur.’
Joe turned to the man. ‘Arthur? Thank you for staying. And thank you for your sentiments. Now, gentlemen, shall we?’
The constable moved reverently to turn the sheet back.
Joe stared.
‘Young female,’ the elderly sergeant had said. And, in death, wiped clean of coquettish artifice, her doll’s face framed by a mop of curling blonde hair, Audrey had shed the years along with her life.
‘Known to you, sir?’ the sergeant enquired gently.
‘Yes. Audrey Blount. Miss Audrey Blount. I can give you her address. Two addresses in fact. She has a sister in Wimbledon, I understand. I interviewed her yesterday . . . was it yesterday? . . . Sunday, anyway. It was Sunday. You can have her taken to the morgue now. I’ll arrange for a police autopsy. Not usual, I know, but there are special circumstances. I’ll see that her next of kin are informed. Look, can you be certain it was suicide?’
‘Better have a word with old Arthur, sir. He’s very clear on what took place, you’ll find.’
‘I’d like to do that.’ He cast an eye around the crowded and unpleasant room. ‘But not here. I could do with some fresh air. How about you, Arthur? Shall we go up on to the bridge and you can tell me all about it?’
‘Here, take this spare cape, sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘Can get a bit nippy up there and there’s a mist rising.’
Joe approached the body and quietly spoke over it a further verse of Thomas Hood’s lugubrious poem. He’d always hated it but here, in these ghastly surroundings, it flooded back into his mind with awful appositeness.
‘Touch her not scornfully,
Think of her mournfully,
Gently and humanly,
Not of the stains of her . . .’
His voice faltered for a moment and the deep baritone behind him finished for him:
‘All that remains of her
Now is pure womanly.’
>
Joe dashed a hand at his eyes. The sergeant passed him a crisp handkerchief. ‘Here. It’s the carbolic, sir. Fumes can get to you if you’re not used to it.’
‘If we go along to the very centre, I think you’ll find the air is fresher there . . . I’m sorry – I don’t know your rank?’ said Arthur in a tone which would have sounded at home in a London club.
‘Commander Sandilands. CID.’
‘Indeed? How do you do? My name is Arthur as you have heard. Sometimes I’m known, in a jesting way, as King Arthur and this –’ he waved expansively at the great length of the bridge – ‘is my kingdom.’
‘I had understood that gentlemen of the road were discouraged from taking up residence on His Other Majesty’s bridges,’ said Joe, responding in kind to the thespian flavour of his companion’s language.
‘Indeed. But I am happy to say I am tolerated here. This beautiful bridge – and being a man who appreciates the spare, the classically correct, the understated, I concur with Canova that it is the loveliest in London – is much frequented by tourists. Tourists have money to spend and even to give away and I find them very generous, particularly our American cousins. Very large-hearted. But they despise – and are embarrassed to find themselves despising – beggars. So, I entertain them to earn a copper or two. I tell them the history of the bridge; I identify the buildings to north and south from the dome of St Paul’s to the tower of Big Ben and I accompany my perorations with appropriate verses.’
The Bee's Kiss Page 18
