The Marx Sisters bak-1

by Barry Maitland

  ‘Everyone’s finished up here, sir. DC Mollineaux told me to wait here for you, case you needed anything. He’s with the door-to-door team. The two old ladies are upstairs if you want them. And Dr Boter left a message that he can see you after his morning surgery at 10.30. His rooms are just down the street at number 11.’

  ‘Botev,’ Kathy corrected him. ‘All right, we won’t need you. We’ll lock up after we’re done.’

  He handed her some keys and left with a salute aimed tactfully at neutral ground between the two of them.

  The flat was as Kathy had described, cosy, peaceful and unruffled, and immediately improbable as the scene of a violent crime. It was tidy, but not obsessively so, and the two half-opened drawers in the main bedroom might easily have been left that way by Meredith. The clothes inside had not been disturbed, and there were no empty cash boxes or purses hidden among them. The furniture dated mostly from the fifties and sixties, with a few more recent things such as the large TVs and videos in both the main bedroom and the living room. There was no sign that anything was missing. In the small spare bedroom a filing cabinet contained only household accounts and personal papers. There were no books.

  ‘She liked German sausage too, sir,’ Kathy called from the kitchen.

  ‘Perhaps Mrs Rosenfeldt did it,’ Brock grunted. He was leaning out of the living room window and taking a photograph of the synagogue which stood facing on to Marquis Street on the other side of the entrance to the Lane. Although built of white Portland stone, it had turned the same grey-black colour as the brick buildings around. It was surrounded by a narrow yard fenced in by stone pillars and iron railings.

  Brock came in and settled himself at the kitchen table.

  Kathy sat opposite him. ‘I don’t know. I’d half convinced myself yesterday, but coming back again today, it doesn’t feel much like a murder scene. I’ve heard of fatal accidents with plastic bags, and suicides too, but no plastic bag murders.’

  ‘It was a favourite murder weapon of the Khmer Rouge,’ Brock said. ‘Very cheap. Well now, I suppose she might have had a pile of cash or something hidden somewhere, that someone knew about, let’s say in her bedroom, and let’s say she wakes up while they’re taking it. But then there would have been signs of a struggle, and bruising, and surely they would have used the pillow, say, or thumped her on the head, or strangled her. Where would the plastic bag have come from?’

  Kathy opened her mouth to speak, but Brock continued.

  ‘Yes, all right, the money was in the plastic bag… And maybe she just began to wake up, and they panicked, tipped the money or whatever it was out and slipped the bag over her head before she could begin to struggle.’ Brock screwed his eyes up at the ceiling and scratched his beard.

  ‘How long would it take, I wonder? We’d better speak to Sundeep.

  ‘Alternatively,’ he continued, ‘there was no secret treasure, and the killer came specifically for her. Someone who knew her, maybe. In which case again, why a plastic bag? And why not make it look more obviously like someone had broken in, someone without prior knowledge? In fact that applies in both cases.’

  Brock nodded and got to his feet. ‘All the same, I wouldn’t give up yet, Kathy. Dr B may just be right. Let’s go upstairs.’

  One door on the landing on the top floor had a neat label Peg Blythe, and the other Eleanor Harper. Kathy picked the latter.

  With her dark hair, straight posture and bright, attentive eyes, she looked younger than her sixty-nine years. Her flat was much smaller than Meredith’s, occupying only the rear half of the building, and it was simply and economically furnished so as to make full use of the space of the main room, which served as a living, dining and study area. One wall was completely lined with bookshelves. Books and papers were piled on the desk against the window which looked out on the jumble of outbuildings, fire escapes, brick walls and ramshackle extensions which had grown up in the rear court of this west side of Jerusalem Lane. Kathy noticed that the room hadn’t been dusted for some time, and that Miss Harper too looked in need of a scrub. Her hair was dull, and Kathy had the thought, of which she was slightly ashamed, that the old lady’s underwear probably wasn’t all that clean.

  The women sat on two ancient leather armchairs, stuffed hard with horsehair, which stood on each side of the gas fire, while Brock pulled over an upright chair from the small dining table by the door to the kitchenette. Eleanor sat stiffly upright, her hands clasped on the lap of her dark wool skirt.

  ‘Peg is lying down at present, officers, but I’ll wake her if you wish. She didn’t sleep last night.’ She spoke with a low, firm voice and articulated the consonants precisely.

  Kathy answered, ‘We’d prefer to speak with you first, Miss Harper. Perhaps we can see her later. I’m sorry to have to disturb you again so soon. You must be very tired, too.’

  They could both see the dark shadows under her eyes.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Brock here is from Scotland Yard. He’s an expert…’-she hesitated a moment-‘from the Serious Crime Branch.’

  Her expression didn’t change, but the hands twitched on her lap. ‘I find it so hard to believe,’ she said. ‘I really don’t know what to make of Dr Botev’s notion. Are you certain that he’s right?’

  ‘No, we’re not. We want to be sure, one way or the other, so to begin with we’ll look into it as if it’s a real possibility.’

  ‘Poor Meredith. On her own… There’s no point in it, I know, but I keep thinking over and over that if only we’d stayed home with her yesterday.’

  ‘You saw her just before you went out?’ Brock asked.

  ‘Yes. The three of us had lunch together in Meredith’s flat-we usually do on a Sunday. Meredith likes to cook a roast, and afterwards apple sponge and custard. She’s been making the same Sunday lunch for years. First for her husband, Frank, and then, when he died, for us.’ She frowned, then shook her head and continued, in a voice quieter and more strained than before. ‘Afterwards Peg and I often like to go for a walk, and Meredith likes to watch the races on the television. Yesterday she said she was very tired. She hadn’t been sleeping very well lately.’

  ‘Had she complained of feeling tired before this?’

  ‘Yes, because of not sleeping well, you see. That’s why we insisted Dr Botev give her a complete check-up. He gave her some medicine, but said she was basically quite fit.’

  ‘Could she have been worried about something?’

  ‘She had been unsettled. I believe she had got herself into a pattern of broken sleep, waking up after a few hours and not being able to get back again, and then feeling tired all day-you know. So yesterday she said she would rest after lunch, and she looked so drained we insisted she take one of Peg’s sleeping pills to make sure she had a good rest.’

  ‘You didn’t mention that yesterday, Miss Harper,’ Kathy said.

  ‘Didn’t I? It was all such a shock yesterday.’

  ‘Did she not have sleeping pills of her own?’ Brock asked.

  ‘No, she was like me. She didn’t really like the idea of them. But she did take one yesterday, and took her glass of port with her to lie down. We closed the door of her flat behind us, got our coats from up here, and went straight out. Oh dear.’ She looked at them suddenly. ‘How rude of me. I should have offered you something. Would you like a cup of tea, Chief Inspector, or coffee?’

  ‘Coffee would be splendid, thank you, Miss Harper.’

  While she was in the kitchenette, Brock got to his feet and peered at the book titles. The fiction was grouped at one end, a mixture of classics-Hardy, Dostoevsky, Blake-and more recent writers-Isabel Allende, John Fowles and Gunter Grass. The rest of the wall, about two thirds of the shelf space, was taken up by non-fiction titles on socialism, economic history and politics.

  They heard a noise of breaking china from the kitchen, and Kathy went to investigate.

  ‘I dropped a cup. It doesn’t matter.’

  Close up Kathy could see the tension li
nes around her eyes and the working of the muscles in her jaw.

  When they returned with the tray of coffee cups, Brock was examining a framed photograph on the wall. It was a portrait of a young woman with the same strong, almost masculine, features as Eleanor Harper, with dark hair pulled back from her face in a similar simple style. She was wearing a dark velvet dress with a white lace collar, and a pair of spectacles was hanging from a cord round her neck. She was smiling gently at someone off to the left of the frame.

  ‘A relative, Miss Harper? I thought I could see a family resemblance there.’

  Her tired features relaxed with pleasure. ‘Do you think so, Chief Inspector? She was our great-aunt. A wonderful woman. I would consider it a very great compliment to be compared to her.’

  ‘Miss Harper,’ Kathy asked, ‘can you think of anyone who might want your sister dead?’

  She looked shocked.

  ‘Certainly not! Meredith was a wonderful person, full of life and vitality. She was interested in everyone in the neighbourhood, always trying to help people who needed it. No one would want to harm her.’

  At that moment the door from the landing opened and the Queen Mother entered the room, or so, for a moment, it appeared to Brock. She was shorter and plumper than Eleanor, dressed in a pale pink silk blouse and angora cardigan, her silver hair recently permed, and with a gracious, if somewhat vague, smile upon her lips. She paused in the doorway as if to orient herself, and Eleanor got up quickly and went to her side.

  ‘Come in, dear. I thought you were still asleep.’

  ‘I heard voices. Who is it, Eleanor?’

  ‘It’s the police, dear. You remember Sergeant Kolla from yesterday, don’t you?’

  It was evident that she did not. Eleanor led her to the armchair and fetched her a cup of coffee, while Brock brought another of the dining chairs over for Kathy.

  ‘Are you all right, dear? Would you like the fire on?’ Eleanor looked at her sister with concern.

  ‘No, no.’ Peg smiled regally at the visitors. ‘I just had a little rest. I feel much better, thank you.’

  ‘We won’t bother you for long, Mrs Blythe,’ Kathy said. ‘We were just talking about yesterday afternoon. You said yesterday that you returned from your walk about 4.15, Miss Harper?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it must have been around then. We came upstairs and called through the door to Meredith when we reached her landing.’

  ‘The door was open?’

  ‘No. Closed, but on the latch. That’s how we usually leave our doors during the day, so we can call in on each other. When she didn’t reply we thought she must be asleep, so we went in to check. At first, when I saw her lying down on her bed, I assumed she was asleep, but then, I don’t know what it was, she was so still…’

  Eleanor bowed her head for a moment. Peg was sitting with the same vague smile upon her face, gazing benignly at the sunlight gleaming on a wall outside the window, and then, suddenly, she closed her eyes and gave a moan.

  Eleanor looked at her with concern. ‘Are you all right, Peg?’ She got to her feet and went to her sister’s side. ‘Peg?’

  ‘I don’t think I want this coffee, Eleanor,’ the old lady whispered at last, and held up the cup. Eleanor nodded and took it away, while her sister pulled out a small embroidered handkerchief from the sleeve of her cardigan and pressed it to her nose.

  There was silence for a minute, then Kathy spoke again, gently.

  ‘I am sorry. Only a couple more questions and then we’ll leave. Do you remember touching her shoes?’

  Eleanor looked perplexed. ‘Her shoes? I don’t remember her shoes.’

  Peg sniffled noisily.

  ‘No, that’s all right,’ Kathy said. ‘And how about the drawers in her room, or the window, do you remember touching them?’

  They both shook their heads.

  ‘Did you touch Meredith?’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ Eleanor said. ‘I shook her shoulder, gently. Her head… was loose. It didn’t seem natural. I couldn’t see or hear her breathing.’

  ‘So you called the doctor?’

  ‘Yes. Peg was upset’-a sob of confirmation came from Peg-‘so I sat her down and I waited on the landing for Dr Botev to arrive. He lives just up the Lane, at number 11.’

  ‘All right.’ Kathy looked at Brock, who shook his head. ‘We won’t need to disturb you any more just now. Would you like us to call someone to be with you?’

  ‘No,’ Eleanor said firmly. ‘No, thank you.’ She drew herself up straight and led them to the door. ‘You will get to the bottom of this, won’t you?’ she said. ‘I would hate to think that Dr Botev was right.’

  ‘We should know more by tomorrow.’

  ‘What about the funeral? When can we bury poor Meredith?’

  ‘The coroner’s office will be in touch with you, Miss Harper. They will be as quick as they possibly can, I know.’

  She smiled gravely at them and let them out.

  3

  There were neither patients nor receptionist in the waiting room of Dr Botev’s surgery. As the jarring note of the door buzzer died away, a dusty silence settled back over the room. Under the glare of a bare fluorescent ceiling light, public health posters about smoking, osteoporosis and safe sex curled on the walls where they had been roughly pinned, and a small pile of tattered and outdated magazines spilled across a low table surrounded by six chairs, each of a different height and design. After a moment there was a noise from the other side of a glass-panelled connecting door, and the doctor appeared, nodded briefly and waved them through into the next room.

  He presented an unlikely appearance for the family physician. Short, thick-set and muscular, he squinted at them through bottle-bottom glasses. He was swarthy in complexion, and his grey hair was cropped to short bristle not much longer than the grey stubble on his chin. Over a khaki shirt and a tartan tie he wore a brown, short-sleeved sweater with several large holes.

  ‘Well,’ he barked, ‘what does the police doctor have to say?’ His voice was pitched unexpectedly high.

  ‘We don’t know yet, doctor,’ Kathy answered. ‘Could you just go over again for the benefit of the Chief Inspector here what your assessment was yesterday, and in particular why you were so convinced Mrs Winterbottom hadn’t died naturally?’

  The doctor turned and stared at Brock for a moment.

  ‘Miss Harper phoned me yesterday about quarter past four in the afternoon. I was here, upstairs. That’s where I live. I have been the doctor to the three sisters for over ten years.’

  Kathy stared at the powerful hands clasped on his blotting pad. They were disproportionately large for his body, with thick stubby fingers matted with black hair. They were the hands of a bricklayer or a farmer. She stopped herself trying to imagine him giving the old ladies internal examinations.

  ‘She said she needed me straight away. There was something wrong with Meredith-Mrs Winterbottom.’

  ‘What were her exact words, doctor?’ Brock asked.

  ‘ “Please come at once. I think Meredith is not breathing.” Something like that. It only took me a few minutes to get my bag and go down the street to the house. Eleanor was waiting on the landing.’

  ‘And Mrs Blythe?’

  ‘She was sitting in Meredith’s bedroom. She seemed to be in shock.’

  ‘Could you describe her?’

  The doctor frowned.

  ‘I didn’t take much notice of her, not at first. I was more concerned with Meredith.’

  He stared up at the ceiling, recalling the scene.

  ‘Peg was sitting on an armchair beside the window, looking at the bed. I don’t think she moved or said anything all the time I was examining her sister. Later, after I called the police, I had a look at her and checked her pulse. She was trembling and showing signs of shock. Eleanor and I took her upstairs to her room. I gave her two secobarbital tablets and Eleanor stayed with her until the detectives arrived.’ He nodded at Kathy. ‘By that time she was asleep.’ />
  ‘I understand you were already prescribing sleeping pills for Peg,’ Brock said. ‘Is that right? Eleanor told us that they gave Meredith one of Peg’s sleeping pills after lunch yesterday to help her rest.’

  ‘Really? I’m surprised she took it. Yes, I did prescribe sedatives for Peg from time to time. The last time would be… oh, two months ago, perhaps. She was complaining of sleeping badly and I gave her a prescription to last her two weeks. I suppose she didn’t finish them.’

  ‘All right, tell us about Meredith.’

  Until this point Dr Botev had been speaking slowly and cautiously, but now he clutched his big hands into fists and said fiercely, ‘She was a fine woman, a strong woman.’

  Brock waited for him to elaborate on these qualities, but he sat in silence, eyes staring unblinking behind his thick lenses.

  ‘She was seventy-four, doctor.’

  ‘So? I am seventy-six.’

  Brock raised his eyebrows in surprise.

  ‘People don’t die of age, Chief Inspector. Death has a cause-natural or unnatural. There was no reason for Meredith to die.’

  ‘You had examined her recently?’

  ‘Yes. For some months she had been sleeping badly. Unusual for her. She came to see me for help.’

  ‘How long ago?’

  The doctor peered down at a patient record card on the desk. ‘The first time in early June, just over three months ago. Apart from a fall she had two years ago it was the first time I’d seen her professionally, although I knew her well. Everyone in the Lane did. Of all the people who live here, she was the most alive, the one who was always keeping up with things. It took her a lot to come and see me in June, I could see that. She wasn’t the sort of person who goes to the doctor just because she’s had a few sleepless nights. But I could see she wasn’t well. She said she didn’t have her usual energy, was run down. Said she wanted a tonic. Something about a bottle of iron medicine her mother gave her as a girl.’

  Dr Botev paused and repeated ‘iron medicine’, shaking his head. ‘When we talked some more, it appeared there were other symptoms: no appetite, constipation, dry skin. She was also troubled by stabbing pains in the lower back. Also, she seemed to have lost interest in what was going on in the Lane. I noticed that in particular, because it was so unlike her. I remember that she didn’t seem to be at all interested in the Kowalskis selling their bookshop and moving down to the coast.