The Marx Sisters bak-1

by Barry Maitland

  Mr Hepple beamed as he showed off his knowledge. He paused to gulp down some more coffee, and Kathy, seeing that Brock was showing no sign of wanting to interrupt him, made to speak. Hepple sensed this, however, and got in first.

  ‘Cramped, cold and spartan as their accommodation was, it at least had the advantage of being only a short walk to the British Museum, for which Marx gained a reader’s ticket in the June of that year, and where he spent the next three months immersed in back numbers of the Economist. Soon after they moved into Jerusalem Lane, Jenny became ill and, fearful of losing her as they had lost their fourth child not long before, Karl sent her to stay with friends for over a month. It was during this period that the maid became mysteriously pregnant and gave birth to a baby boy towards the end of that year. Soon after, around Christmas time, the family was evicted for not paying their rent, and, with the help of Marx’s friend Engels, moved on, firstly to lodgings in Soho, and later, when they inherited money, out to the new suburbs of Kentish Town and Hampstead.

  ‘A hundred years later, in the period after the Second World War, Jerusalem Lane was largely unchanged, and was still providing shelter to refugees from European upheavals, as waves of Latvians, East Germans, Hungarians, Czechs and Poles made their way westward. For most it was, as for the Marxes, a temporary stage on their route to prosperity in the suburbs of the Home Counties, but others stayed, setting up small businesses in the buildings which had once housed the Russian-Jewish clog maker, butcher and lace trader. The key to the success of these small businesses (and I would count my father’s practice among them) was Jerusalem Lane itself, which provided a short cut for people travelling from the tube station at its north end to the northern parts of Holborn and to the hospital of Great Ormond Street. Each day the ebb and flow of these travellers have irrigated the cash registers of Witz’s Cameras, Kowalski’s Old and New Books, Brunhilde’s Flower Shop and all the rest, while the Balaton Cafe and Boll’s Coffee and Chocolates have tempted people to linger before moving on to the noise and traffic of the surrounding streets, where a somewhat greyer style of trading-office supplies, photocopy services and travel agencies-has taken over.

  ‘However, none of the children of these refugees of the 40s and 50s have remained in the Lane; they have moved out to the suburbs, returning occasionally to visit their now ageing parents, still living above the shop, still without cars (for there is nowhere to put them), and still performing their good-natured, if sometimes fiery and increasingly eccentric, revue of Central European politics of a generation ago.’

  Brock roused himself. ‘Mrs Winterbottom had children?’

  ‘A son, yes.’ But Mr Hepple hadn’t quite finished the broad picture. ‘The Winterbottoms didn’t really fit this pattern. They weren’t refugees, unless from Australia,’ and he gave a self-deprecating little laugh to avoid the possibility of offence. ‘They weren’t Central Europeans or Jews. They were simply Londoners returning almost by accident to this area. But they became, and Meredith especially, the linchpins of the place.’

  ‘I met the son yesterday evening, sir,’ Kathy said. ‘Terry Winter. Lives in South London. Eleanor phoned him and he came to the house.’

  ‘Winter?’ Brock queried.

  ‘Yes, he was particular about that.’

  ‘He dropped the “bottom”,’ the solicitor interjected, anxious to resume his role as principal storyteller. ‘Meredith was rather annoyed when he did it. Quite disgusted in fact. I rather gathered it was his wife who was behind it, so to speak.’ They all showed their appreciation of his little joke.

  ‘No other children, then?’ Brock asked.

  The solicitor shook his head.

  ‘And the sisters? How do they go in ages?’

  ‘Now, let me see. Meredith was the oldest certainly, and would have been in her mid-seventies. Peg was next and Eleanor youngest. There are only a couple of years between each of them, so Eleanor must be sixty-nine or seventy, although I must say she doesn’t look it, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Have they all been living there since 1967?’

  ‘No, no. In those days Peg was a buyer for one of the big department stores-I’m not sure which one-and Eleanor was an assistant librarian at the British Museum. They were both single ladies, and had their own flats somewhere.’

  ‘Wasn’t Peg married?’ Kathy asked.

  ‘Only briefly. She was widowed before Meredith and Frank returned to England.’

  ‘So, they came back.’

  ‘Yes, and lived together at number 22 for ten or twelve years. In those days it was an ironmonger who rented the ground-floor shop. Terry only lived with them for a year or so, because he was nineteen or twenty at that stage and went off to technical college or something, and got a place of his own.

  ‘Then Frank died. Cancer of the bowel. That would have been about ten years ago. By this stage Peg had retired, and Eleanor was coming up to it as well, and so Meredith had the alterations done to the top floor and made them their own flats for them to come and live at 22 with her. I must say that I was very doubtful about it. They’re so different the three of them, I thought they’d never get on living together.’

  ‘In what ways different?’

  ‘Well, in every way. Their personalities, their tastes, and above all in their politics.’

  ‘Politics?’

  ‘Oh dear me yes. Meredith, well she didn’t really have any politics; I mean she might have voted Tory, but there again it might have been Liberal or Labour if it suited. She was a business woman, like Frank. They rented the newsagent’s on the corner next door-what’s now Stwosz’s-just for something to occupy Frank when he wasn’t doing business with his stockbroker. And they made a real go of it, too. Special pipe tobaccos and cigars ordered for individual customers, special deliveries of the foreign financial papers to the offices around here, you know. They were really entrepreneurs-what the other two sisters would call petite bourgeoisie, I dare say.’

  ‘They were of a pinker persuasion, I take it?’ Brock said.

  ‘Pink? Oh dear me no. Red! And very red at that. Eleanor is what she calls a “scientific socialist”, which I think is some form of extreme Marxist, and Peg is a Stalinist.’

  ‘Stalinist?’ Brock and Kathy gaped at the solicitor, trying to reconcile this information with the vision of the Queen Mother they had met at number 22.

  ‘Indeed!’ Mr Hepple beamed, delighted at the effect of this titbit. ‘Staunch member of the Party. Used to go every summer to East Germany and other delightful parts of the workers’ paradise, at the invitation of the comrades. And still believes in it all. Quite unyielding. She was telling me only the other day. “They’ve lost all sense of discipline,” she said. “You’ll see what a mess there’ll be now they’ve abandoned the Party.” And I said, “You must be the very last Stalinist left in Europe,” and she said yes, she thought she might donate her body to the British Museum to be stuffed and displayed as the last member of an extinct species, when they decided to do away with her.’

  The smile slowly faded from his chubby pink cheeks as he registered his own words. ‘Oh dear,’ he murmured, ‘oh dear, oh dear.’

  ‘Mr Hepple,’ Brock said, taking advantage of his moment of confusion, ‘I wonder if you would be able to help us in the matter of Mrs Winterbottom’s will.’

  ‘Well, I am her sole executor, so I don’t see why not, under the circumstances. She made it out some time ago, but I can recall the gist.’

  ‘She didn’t alter it recently, or talk of doing so?’

  ‘No, no. In fact I hadn’t really seen her for a while. As I say, I don’t get up here so often now. The main beneficiary of Mrs Winterbottom is her son, with small legacies for his two daughters-some pieces of jewellery and a little cash. Unless her circumstances changed substantially in the last year or so, her estate really amounts to some shares and other savings left by her husband, which she had been gradually eating into for her income over the past ten years, together with the property, number
22. However, she had me establish a trust to administer the property after her death for the period that either or both of her sisters survive her, to allow them to continue to remain there for as long as they wished, rent-free. Once they leave or pass away, the property reverts unobstructed to the son.’

  ‘Could he challenge that?’ Kathy asked.

  The solicitor examined his fingernails. ‘No, I think that’s unlikely.’ From his tone Kathy felt he had considered this possibility quite carefully. She suddenly wondered if he was more devious than he looked.

  ‘And is he aware of the terms of his mother’s will?’ she asked.

  ‘I believe so,’ he said vaguely, then suddenly looked worried. ‘You’re surely not suggesting…’

  ‘These are just standard lines of inquiry in these sorts of circumstances, Mr Hepple,’ Brock said soothingly. ‘I’m sure you understand.’

  ‘I see.’ He still looked worried. ‘I must say my familiarity with murder investigations is somewhat limited. The last time I came up against such a thing was many years ago. A client in Southwark, I believe…’

  ‘We’d best be getting along, sir,’ Kathy broke in hurriedly, and rose to her feet.

  ‘Of course, quite so.’ The solicitor got up and hurried round his desk to show them out, making a particular point of shaking Brock’s hand. ‘If there’s anything you want to know about the people around here, Miss Pemberton is the person to speak to. She’s been living here for some years now, and she does the books and VAT returns for quite a few of them. We shall be very sorry to part company with her.’

  ‘She’s leaving?’

  ‘Well, we both are in point of fact.’ He shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands in regret. ‘We do so little business here,’ he said, lowering his voice to a discreet whisper. ‘It really doesn’t make much sense-hasn’t for several years now. So we’re selling the property, and Miss Pemberton has her own plans to retire.’

  5

  From the car phone they arranged to interview Meredith Winterbottom’s son at his home later that afternoon. Kathy had to return to her divisional headquarters near by, where an incident room had been set up in an office adjoining her own, to check on the progress of the three other detectives who had been working their way round the neighbourhood that morning, interviewing potential witnesses. As she was about to leave, she hesitated a moment and then turned to Brock.

  ‘Sir, do you think I might be able to knock off by 7 tonight? I was at it till fairly late last night, and I sort of had something arranged for this evening. Of course, if you feel it’s important

  …’

  ‘Not at all,’ Brock replied genially. ‘We should have done for the day well before then. And, anyway, it’s your case. We’ll do as you say.’

  As she left, she thought uneasily that this certainly wasn’t the Chief Inspector Brock she’d heard about. Maybe he’s getting soft, she thought. Or maybe he’s like this until you make your first mistake.

  Having arranged to meet her at 3, Brock strolled back to Rosenfeldt’s Continental Delicatessen. The shop smelled as good as it looked. Cheeses, wursts, breads, salamis and pickles filled it with layers of intriguingly delicate and pungent odours which varied subtly from corner to corner of the small space. Mrs Rosenfeldt came out from the rear in response to the tinkling bell over the door. She was a small woman in her late sixties, dressed simply in greys, who looked as if she might have suffered from some serious illness in recent years, or perhaps, further in the past, a spell in one of the Third Reich’s more horrific institutions. Her silver hair was drawn tightly back into a bun, emphasizing the lack of flesh on her skull. Her throat and wrists were corded and criss-crossed with what appeared to be pale scars. Yet the eyes that glittered through her steel-framed glasses were needle-sharp.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ Brock said amiably. ‘I am very interested in your bratwurst, and possibly some cheese, but perhaps you could give me a small guided tour of your specialities.’

  Mrs Rosenfeldt gave a little smile and began to outline the things under the glass display cases. Brock settled for some pumpernickel, Westphalian ham, a jar of pickled herrings which he knew he should avoid, a dozen bratwurst (having established that freezing wouldn’t spoil their flavour), a large slice of Allgau cheese, some sliced poltava salami and a small tub of black kalamathes olives.

  As she wrapped these up and placed them in a plastic carrier bag, Mrs Rosenfeldt said, ‘You’re one of the police looking into Mrs Winterbottom’s death, aren’t you?’ The way she said it suggested that death was a familiar fact which didn’t have to be hedged around with euphemisms or hushed tones. Her voice was low, almost masculine, and with a strong German or Central European accent.

  ‘That’s right. I understand you weren’t in your shop here yesterday?’

  ‘Yes. I spoke to a detective this morning.’

  ‘But you must have known Mrs Winterbottom well?’

  ‘She was my landlady.’

  ‘She seems to have been very popular in the neighbourhood.’

  ‘Oh, she knew everybody. Liked to know everything going on.’ The tone suggested some reservations about people who liked to know everything going on.

  ‘You mean she might have been a bit too concerned with other people’s business?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. I was very fond of her, myself.’

  ‘But others weren’t?’

  She hesitated. ‘All I’d say is’-she stared intently at Brock-‘when I heard that she might have been murdered, my first thought was, they should speak to those Nazis in the Croatia Club.’

  ‘Nazis?’

  She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I’ve said enough. I have to live here, you know. I said what I said. Maybe it’s a clue for you, maybe not, I don’t know.’

  Brock picked up his carrier bag and thanked her. As the door tinkled shut behind him he turned and looked back through the shop window. She was standing motionless in the shadows at the back of the shop, a pale wraith, watching him.

  On the drive down through South London to Kent, Kathy told Brock what the door-to-door inquiries had produced.

  ‘It’s extraordinary, isn’t it, in a street like that, with the net curtains twitching every time we appeared this morning, that nobody admits to having been by a window overlooking either the front or the back of number 22 yesterday afternoon. Not one.’

  ‘Always the way. Anybody remember seeing any strangers in the block?’

  ‘Well, the thing is that there are always strangers passing through, so no one takes any notice unless they do something odd. It’s like living next to a railway line. After a while you just don’t hear the trains any more. The only outdoor areas you’d call private are the yards behind the buildings. Mr Hepple parks his car in one of them when he comes, and there’s a jumble of sheds and open yards with an access passage from Carlisle Street on the west side of the block. But no one remembers seeing anybody there yesterday afternoon. It’s all very frustrating. Inspector MacDonald said he wanted Mollineaux and the other two for another job, and I couldn’t really argue.’

  ‘Never mind. Perhaps Mr Winter-without-the-bottom will break down and confess when we beat him about the head and shoulders with a bratwurst. Did you get some lunch, by the way?’

  Kathy shook her head and accepted Brock’s invitation to help herself from his bag while he told her about Mrs Rosenfeldt’s ‘clue’. She groaned. ‘Geriatric Nazis are all we need. The press’ll get to hear of it, and then the whole thing will blow up in our faces when we discover the old lady had a heart attack after all.’ She peeled off several slices of salami and took a few olives.

  ‘But you don’t really think so, do you?’

  Kathy paused, and then said ‘No, sir, I don’t. I don’t know what it is, but I felt it was wrong when I first went into that flat yesterday, and the feeling’s never left me since. I know it sounds weak in the circumstances.’

  ‘Not at all, Kathy,’ Brock said. ‘I always have feelings about case
s. I think you may be right. It’s just doubly important to check everything.’

  ‘Sir, can I ask you about something that Hepple raised? It’s bothered me too. This case, it’s not exactly the Manchester Poisoner, at least not yet. I was surprised the Yard wanted to get involved. And then when they said it would be you-well, it just seemed unlikely.’

  Brock smiled. ‘ “The Yard moves in mysterious ways, its blunders to perform”… Actually, I never really know what they’ll put me on next. Part of the attraction. I agree that this didn’t sound too promising at first, but I’m rather enjoying it. Don’t mind, do you, me tagging along?’

  ‘Oh no! Of course not. It’s great being able to work with someone like you. It was just-well, after your last case, I mean this isn’t the same sort of high-profile thing at all.’

  Brock’s previous case, the ‘City Securities Slayings’ Mr Hepple had referred to, had been in the headlines for weeks. Two young police officers had been shot dead in the City by a gang escaping with the contents of a bank’s security boxes. Brock, in charge of a team drawn from the Serious Crime Branch and Robbery Squad, had eventually identified the gang leader as Gregory Thomas North, a professional criminal with a record of violent robberies, known as Upper North because of his dangerous habit of psyching himself with stimulants before a job. On the point of arrest, North had disappeared, surfacing a few days later in South America, beyond the reach of extradition.

  ‘Everyone in Division got really worked up over that,’ Kathy said. ‘Half of us had been on the case, anyway, doing leg work for the Yard, and when it turned out the way it did… You must have felt terrible, sir.’

  ‘Yes, well, we may yet have a little surprise in store for friend North,’ Brock grunted. He said no more, and they continued in silence through the southern boroughs until they came out among the oak and silver birch woods around Chislehurst Common.