by Laura Wilson
Before he could respond, the two of them were joined by the Wuffy-or-possibly-Wuggy chap and another plummy-voiced, red-faced type called Hamilton, both of whom, after introducing themselves, ignored Stratton completely. The music had changed from lilting strings to something distractingly bouncy with a singer who injected growls and yelps of ‘Oooowee!’ and ‘She’s awwwwl-right’ into the proceedings, which made the conversation difficult to hear. He made a polite pretence of listening while concentrating on what was happening on the other side of the room. A man and a girl were dancing to the music. She – considerably younger than he – was jigging about quite prettily, smiling and tossing her head. His movements made Stratton think of someone writhing while impaled on a spike, though whether the expression on his face was agony or ecstasy, he could not tell. Both, perhaps?
The Hon. Virginia was still being skittish with the black chaps, although now she had competition from a couple of others – women rather older than the mannequins, who looked as though they might well be the wives of members. One of the men was responding in kind, and the other looked even more uncomfortable than before. Michael Duffy, who seemed to have been edged out of the conversation, was looking annoyed at having his prize exhibits appropriated. Serve him right, thought Stratton.
The music changed again, this time to something Stratton recognised – ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’, performed against a background of tumbling plinky notes and yearning violins by one of those crooners with sincere and velvet tones – and a glance in the opposite direction showed him that Rutherford and the blonde girl were now indulging in what one of his old colleagues had memorably described as ‘a dry fuck on a dance floor’. If the Hon. Virginia had noticed this, she wasn’t showing it.
The sight of the two of them – ‘I of course replied/ Something deep inside/ Cannot be denied’ – sent him into a reverie about Fenella Jones, only interrupted by Perlmann’s calling for champagne, which he proceeded to press on everybody but did not take for himself.
A moment later Stefan Laskier appeared with a small bottle of what seemed to be fizzy water and presented it to Perlmann, who took it and inspected it carefully before cracking the seal, removing the lid, and raising it to his lips. If either of the others thought this odd, they gave no indication of it – whether from good manners or simple lack of curiosity, Stratton wasn’t sure. At that point someone hailed Perlmann from the other end of the room and he departed, clutching the bottle and tailed by the others.
‘Who are the men with Mrs Rutherford?’ Stratton asked.
Laskier, who looked even more exhausted and dejected than when Stratton had seen him at the hospital, gazed at him blankly for a moment, then said, ‘I don’t know the one on the right, but the more … flamboyant one, on the left, is Clinton Etheridge – I think I told you about him, Inspector.’
‘He’s the one who lives with Irene Palmer?’
‘Yes.’
‘And I understand he’s a friend of Clyde Johnson, who – as you know – was killed last night. He was attacked not far from where you say you found Miss Palmer.’
‘I told you the truth, Inspector. We have many tenants – how can we know everything about them?’
‘I don’t suppose you can,’ said Stratton and then, to change the subject, ‘Quite a place you’ve got here.’
‘Yes.’ Laskier surveyed the noisy crowd, the corners of his mouth turned down. For a long moment his eyes rested on Rutherford and the girl. The record being almost finished, they were glued together, mouth to mouth, she with her back arched and he with a hand on each buttock, pushing her into his crotch. ‘Half of London comes here at Danny’s expense.’
‘They pay, don’t they?’
‘Some of them. But Danny’s too generous with them – champagne, drinks … food, very often. Banquets, where anyone can help himself. Dinner parties at his home. He keeps boxes of chocolates to give their wives. I tell him to stop, we can’t afford it – he tells me it doesn’t matter. Danny wants all these top-drawer people to accept him. To be … regarded by them. Respectable like them. He dreams of a knighthood.’
‘You’re joking.’
Laskier shook his head slowly. ‘I’m not. Danny thinks that as long as he keeps behaving like this, these people will accept him. He doesn’t understand. They’ll eat his food, drink his champagne, of course – but he’ll never be one of them. He’s got no more chance than those schwartzers.’
*
After a few more minutes, Stratton told Laskier he’d be in to see Perlmann in the morning and left him standing in the middle of the room, quite still and quite alone, as people ebbed and flowed around him. The Hon. Virginia seemed to have disappeared, but he found Matheson and said goodnight, and then looked around for Perlmann. Eventually, he spotted him at the side of the room, chatting volubly to someone who was hidden in one of the recesses, and made his way through the now dense crowd towards him.
Just as he managed to squeeze his way around a knot of chatterers, Perlmann disappeared behind the recess and Stratton saw that he was going through a door with, in front of him, Clinton Etheridge. The door – marked ‘Private’ – closed behind them and Stratton made his way back through the crowd and out into the fresh air of the street.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Even at nine o’clock in the morning with the windows wide open, the station was like an oven.
‘That’s last night’s little lot,’ said PC Jellicoe. Neatly arranged in a line on the table in front of him were a length of iron railing, two knives, a table leg and a starting handle, all tagged with labels. ‘We’ve got eight downstairs – six white, two coloured. PC Fleet-wood’s up at Saint Charles’s having his face stitched – got hit by some kids throwing bottles. And as if that wasn’t enough, a bunch of Teddy boys tried to run a coloured bloke down in a car and managed to crash into a wall, so two of them are in hospital as well, along with the poor darkie who got clobbered with that –’ Jellicoe indicated the starting handle. ‘We’re a bit shorthanded, what with all this going on, but we’ve got a couple of blokes doing house-to-house enquiries about Clyde Johnson … oh, and Dr McNally says can you telephone him about the post-mortem. Cup of tea?’
*
‘… time of death was recorded by the ambulance men as 8.56 p.m.,’ Dr McNally reeled off his notes in a staccato Scottish accent. ‘A single stab-wound to the heart, approximately five and a half inches long. Most of the bleeding would have been internal, and such blood as there is on the clothing belongs to the victim. There are no—’
‘Can you slow down a bit?’ Stratton mopped his face with his handkerchief before wedging the receiver more firmly under his chin. ‘I’m trying to take notes.’
‘Sorry,’ said McNally. Stratton had a mental picture of his elongated, austere frame seated amid the grisly mementoes in his office: booze-hardened livers and abortions floating in jars, stockings used to strangle their owners, rapists’ trouser buttons and the like. In the fifteen or so years they’d known each other, the pathologist had built up a museum of the things, arranging them with as much care as a housewife might a prized collection of china animals or holiday souvenirs. ‘There isn’t much more,’ he continued. ‘No defensive wounds to the hands, some bruising to the arms and torso, which would be consistent with his having been pushed about and hit by several people, as I understand there was quite a gang involved. Last meal was fish and chips, consumed about an hour prior to death, no alcohol … I think that’s about it. I’ll send you the report.’
‘Thanks. You did the PM on Herbert Hampton a couple of weeks ago, didn’t you?’
‘That’s right. Wait a minute.’ Stratton heard several dull thuds down the line, as though heavy textbooks were being moved. ‘Here we are. What about it?’
‘Could it have been a similar weapon?’
‘Similar, yes …’ McNally sounded cautious. ‘I couldn’t say more than that, you understand. Lots of these hooligans carrying knives nowadays … Enjoying your new job, are you
?’
‘Never a dull moment. We had more trouble here last night.’
‘Aye,’ said McNally. ‘And it’ll get worse before it gets better.’
‘That,’ said Stratton, thinking of what old Mr Russell had said, ‘is what I’m afraid of.’
*
‘These tribunals are against the landlords,’ said Perlmann, with an air of injured innocence. ‘I tell you, Inspector, when these councillors and the people on the committees have got their publicity and the other things they want, they’ll all disappear – pfft!’ – he mimed a cloud of smoke with his hands, ‘but the schwartzers will still be here and I’ll still be the only one prepared to rent them houses to live in.’ Shiny with sweat, wearing sinister-looking dark glasses and seated in his office at a desk heaped haphazardly with papers, he flipped through a pile of letters as he talked, giving each a cursory glance before tossing it aside. Laskier, seated behind the other desk, was muttering over an adding machine.
‘Ach, it doesn’t matter,’ said Perlmann, tossing a letter over his shoulder.
‘Do you think Mrs Rutherford wants publicity?’ asked Stratton.
‘As I told you, Inspector, Virginia is a nice woman whose husband ignores her. She has money, and that makes her feel guilty, so she tries to make herself feel better. Also, she is not beautiful, and – like any woman – she would like some attention, so …’ Perlmann shrugged. ‘One cannot blame her for that.’
So far, Stratton had got no further forward with his enquiries about Hampton’s death than he had with Laskier, and he sensed that he wasn’t going to – Perlmann had flatly denied any shenanigans over the rent collection, and was only eager to discuss his own grievances, so his statement was more a formality than any actual use. ‘Look at this,’ he said, pointing at a jumble of broken padlocks lying on the desk. ‘The man who empties the gas meters finds this every week. The tenants break them and steal the money. Five or six of these we replace, every week.’
Feeling that this could go on for some time, Stratton said, ‘Did you know Clyde Johnson?’
‘Only the name – Stefan told me. It’s terrible, but I’m afraid I cannot help you.’
‘But you know his friend Clinton Etheridge?’
‘Etheridge?’
‘I saw you with him last night, at your club. You were going into a room marked “Private”.’
Perlmann thought – or appeared to think – for a moment. ‘Ach, yes. But I did not know him before he spoke to me. He wanted to complain about his flat. He said it was too small, so I have offered him a bigger one – no extra money – with its own kitchen and bathroom. I like to help people if I can.’
Stratton saw, out of the corner of his eye, that Laskier had looked up from his calculations and was staring at Perlmann, face furrowed in exasperation.
*
Driving to Powis Terrace, Stratton wondered if Etheridge had threatened to go to the rent tribunal and been bought off with the promise of a better place to live. If so, then judging from the expression on Laskier’s face, it was news to him – and, presumably, worrying news, because Perlmann couldn’t hope to buy off all his tenants in such a way. Unless, of course, he had Etheridge lined up to do something else for him. Stratton wondered what that might be, and what else Perlmann might not have told Laskier. Secrets were a lot easier to keep if you didn’t share them – perhaps, Stratton thought, Perlmann had learnt the hard way not to rely on anybody but himself.
The place seemed peaceful enough – shops open, groups of children running about the streets, stockingless housewives in carpet slippers gossiping in pairs, tradesmen and workmen going about their business in shirtsleeves. Stratton parked the car and climbed the cracked front steps of number 12. The hall and stairs were, if anything, in worse shape than the house he’d visited in Colville Terrace. He skirted the pail of water balanced precariously on the portable oil stove on the landing, and knocked on the door.
There was no answer, but when he turned the knob the door moved slightly, as if it wasn’t locked but something was blocking it from the other side. He put his ear to the wood and thought he heard a faint – very faint – sob. Stratton put his shoulder to the door and gave it a hard shove. There was a second’s resistance, followed by a splintering noise and then the door gave, precipitating him into the room over the remains of a kitchen chair. It was empty but for Irene, who was cowering behind the remaining chair on the far side of the table, her face buried in the checked gingham of the cloth. He put the broken chair to one side and closed the door behind him.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
‘Miss Palmer?’
Irene raised her head fractionally, so that Stratton saw the two enormous greeny-gold eyes framed with spider’s-leg lashes beneath the mop of pale red hair, and the dusting of freckles across her nose. She was wearing a short-sleeved jersey, with the bandage around her arm clearly visible, and she was just short of shaking with fear.
But for the table and chairs, the room was bare of furniture except for a shelf holding a small collection of crockery and tinned food, and a paraffin stove in the corner. The only ornament Stratton could see was a bunch of paper flowers in a jam jar on the cast-iron mantelshelf. He crouched down beside the girl. ‘There’s no need to worry, Miss Palmer. It’s Inspector Stratton from Harrow Road. We met at Saint Charles’s Hospital – you were with Mr Laskier. Do you remember?’
Irene nodded. She looked as though she were about to faint.
‘Mr Laskier said he’d found you in a confused state on the corner of Portobello Road and Oxford Gardens, and you told him you’d gone for a walk, got lost and fallen over, and that you live here with a man called Clinton Etheridge. You told me that you were eighteen and your parents didn’t know where you were. Now, you may or may not be eighteen, but I’m definitely too old to be sitting on the floor, so let’s get up, shall we?’ Rising, he went to take Irene’s arm, but she flinched away from him and scrambled to her feet unaided. ‘Come on.’ He patted the seat of the chair. ‘Much more comfortable.’ Gingerly, and keeping her distance, Irene sat down. Whatever she is, Stratton thought, she’s not a street girl. ‘I think,’ he said aloud, ‘that you’re what they call a mystery. Not been here long, have you?’
She blinked and shook her head.
‘But you come from London.’
She nodded.
‘You’re not eighteen, are you?’
‘Yes.’ The word came out in a hoarse whisper.
‘Yes, you are or yes, you aren’t?’
‘I am.’
‘I believe you – for the time being, at least. Want a cigarette?’ Stratton proffered his packet of Churchman’s.
‘Thanks.’ Her hand snaked out and took one quickly, as though she was afraid he’d snatch them away.
He lit a match for her. ‘Who are you afraid of, love?’
‘I’m not.’
‘Usually barricade the door and pretend to be out, do you?’
More head-shaking.
‘Is it Etheridge?’
‘No-o.’ This was said with a hint of a smile, so that she looked and sounded like a child to whom an adult has said something deliberately preposterous.
‘Where is he, by the way?’
‘I don’t know. He went out.’
‘I see. Is it your family that you’re afraid of? Mr Laskier thinks you’ve run away from home, and I think he’s right.’
‘No.’ Hands shaking, and definitely no smile this time, Irene fiddled distractedly with the cigarette and did not meet his eye.
‘Well, it’s obviously somebody … Of course!’ Stratton slapped his forehead with his palm in a parody of revelation. ‘It’s the people who attacked you two days ago. The gang of boys on Golborne Road. Do they know you live here?’
‘No, they don’t – they didn’t – I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Irene—’
‘No!’ Irene took a deep breath, trying to steady herself.
‘Irene, I’m trying to h
elp you. If—’
‘No! I wasn’t in Golborne Road.’
‘A witness gave a description of a girl who sounds very much like you, who was there when Mr Johnson was attacked.’
‘I don’t know anything about it.’
‘The witness said there were two girls who were chased away by the gang.’
‘I told you, it wasn’t me.’ Irene stood up abruptly, sending her chair clattering to the floor. ‘It’s like Mr Laskier said. I fell over, and—’
‘Fell over because you were running away?’
‘No!’ She was shouting now, gulping back tears. ‘I wasn’t! I—’
‘Irene?’ The door was flung open and a black man – not Etheridge – stood on the threshold. ‘Are you OK? What’s happened here?’
‘Detective Inspector Stratton. I was just talking to Miss Palmer. You are …?’
‘My name is Royston Walker. I live upstairs.’ As he spoke, Stratton recognised him as the chap who’d been with Michael Duffy and Etheridge in Maxine’s the previous evening. Close to, he was tall, well-built, and smartly but soberly dressed in a suit and tie. Walker, who was staring at him – not, Stratton thought, with active dislike, but certainly with suspicion – gave no sign of having seen him before. His voice was deep and rich and he sounded far more educated than either Royce or Conroy and didn’t seem in the least bothered at being in the presence of a policeman. ‘I was passing and I thought Irene might be in some trouble.’ Stratton wondered if he meant trouble with Etheridge and, if so, whether it had happened before.
‘I see,’ he said. ‘If I might have a word with you outside?’
Irene stared as Stratton thanked her for her time, and, taking Walker by the elbow, steered him onto the landing. ‘I live upstairs,’ Walker murmured. ‘It’s better she doesn’t hear.’
Mystified, Stratton followed him up to a freshly painted and spotlessly clean room on the top floor of the house.
‘Please,’ said Walker, indicating the solitary armchair and seating himself on the edge of the bed.
