by Mark Ellis
“It’s me. You know my voice, do you not?”
Surprise showed in the fat man’s voice. “You. I… So at last you are prepared to see me. Why at this ungodly hour?”
“For heaven’s sake, let me in. I can’t talk to you from out here.” The door was opened and the visitor entered, water dripping everywhere from his sodden raincoat.
“You resemble a drowned rat. Here, give me your coat and go into the living room. What a country! Rain, rain, rain.”
The visitor remained where he was, staring grimly at his host.
“My dear fellow, you look like death warmed up. Whatever is wrong with you? Come through here. This place is something of a comedown from my apartment on the Ile St Louis but things could be worse. I could be dead or in a Nazi concentration camp. Come, let’s sit down and talk.”
The visitor’s hand reached inside his coat. A gun appeared. The fat man gasped. “My dear fellow, what on earth are you thinking? There is no need for this. Put the gun away, I beg you. Let us have a drink and discuss things like gentlemen.”
“Be quiet. Get in there.”
The fat man did as he was told and shuffled, whimpering, into his bedroom, beads of perspiration running down into the double folds of his neck. The gunman followed, pushed the man roughly face down on the bed, sending his wig flying, then sat astride his trembling prey. A series of disgusting noises heralded the evacuation of the fat man’s bowels. The gunman snorted with disgust as he reached for one of the pillows and jammed it over the fat man’s head. He took a deep breath, held the gun to the pillow, then fired a shot. The body beneath him juddered. He fired another shot, then another. The body became still. An owl hooted outside as the gunman pulled back the pillow and surveyed his handiwork.
* * *
The hotel maid arrived promptly with his breakfast tray at eight-fifteen as usual. He opened the door dressed in his favourite dark-blue dressing gown and matching pyjamas. “Come in, my dear Doris. How are you today? Not too harassed, I hope, by all the demanding hotel guests.”
Charming as he was, there was something about Mr Sidney Fleming that Doris didn’t quite care for. However, as an experienced employee of one of the finest hotels in London, she gave no hint of her reservations. She laughed pleasantly as she rolled in the trolley and set it beside the little window table in the sitting room of Fleming’s large and opulent suite. It was one of the most expensive rooms in the Ritz and Sidney Fleming had been occupying it permanently since just after the war began.
Doris thought of what her friend and co-worker Florrie had often said. “How many banks did he rob to get his money, smarmy little twerp.” One of her other friends, an East End maintenance man, said Fleming was a ‘Cutty Sark’, Cockney rhyming slang for loan shark, but Doris thought he was far too smooth for that. He had numerous meetings in his suite with men who appeared to be reputable businessmen. Fleming was clearly a successful financier or company director with plenty of money to spend. She knew in her bones, however, that there was something fishy about him.
“No, sir. Everything is tickety-boo.”
“Excellent, my dear. What sort of kipper do we have this morning?” Fleming, a dapper little man with long, luxuriant, Dickensian sideburns – which Doris thought he must have grown to compensate for the shortage of hair on his head – lifted the silver cloche and purred with delight. “A particularly large specimen today. Wonderful. I didn’t get much to eat last night and am ravenous.” He stuffed a shilling into the maid’s hand and sat down to eat. As Doris went out of the door, he called out: “Give my best to His Majesty when you see him. Tell him my idea worked and he should sell now.”
His Majesty was King Zog of Albania, whom Fleming thought must be doing very well from his share tips, provided he was buying and selling when Fleming told him to. The monarch and his retinue had occupied most of a floor at the Ritz since early in the war, after Mussolini had had the bad manners to run him out of his country. A perfectly pleasant, affable chap with remarkably few airs and graces. Who’d have thought it, Fleming pondered as he finished his breakfast. He, a Bermondsey boy, mingling with royalty? He had his friend Simon Arbuthnot to thank for that.
He wiped his mouth and rose. The thought of Simon reminded him he had a call to make. He dialled and waited a long time for an answer but to no avail. “Another late night,” he thought to himself. He would give the boy another hour before trying again.
* * *
“I just need to go in and see how Sam Bridges got on yesterday.” Merlin was half-dressed while Sonia was sitting up in bed nursing a hangover and the cup of tea he had made for her. Luckily for her, she had the day off.
“We haven’t had a free Saturday for ages, darling.”
Merlin was fiddling with the knot on his tie. He hated a badly knotted tie. “I know. I’ll try to get away at lunchtime. Why don’t we go and see a show tonight?”
Sonia perked up. “That would be wonderful. What show?”
“How about Max Miller at the Palladium?”
Sonia squealed with excitement. Merlin found Sonia’s love of English music-hall humour endearing but surprising. Most of the very English jokes and double entendres must surely pass her by but she laughed anyway. She would be glued to Tommy Handley’s It’s That Man Again radio show every week and had almost collapsed in hysterics at the latest Crazy Gang picture, in which Bud Flanagan and his pals discovered a secret training camp for Hitler impersonators in occupied France.
She had heard Max Miller on the radio and Merlin knew it was one of her keenest wishes to see him in the flesh. Bridges had told him earlier in the week that he had been given a couple of tickets to Miller’s new sell-out show. Bridges wasn’t able to use them because he and his wife didn’t have a babysitter and, even if they could find one, Iris was too worn out by the baby to enjoy an evening out. Merlin hadn’t said yes or no to the tickets but hoped he was not too late.
“I’ll need to check that Sam still has the tickets. If he does, I think the show starts at six-forty-five.”
“You’ve got me all excited now, Frank. My headache has suddenly gone!” Sonia stood and bounced on the bed, laughing. Her nightdress slipped a little, revealing one perfectly formed breast. Sonia caught Merlin’s raised eyebrow. “I could be excited in other ways, Frank, if you were to hang around for a little.” She knelt and put her arms around him. Merlin hugged her back for a moment before pulling away. “Why not save that for tonight after the show, darling?” Sonia pouted back at him as he put on his jacket and moved to the door. “I understand there’s a new young singer called Vera Lynn in the show. Word is she’s very good.”
* * *
Bridges was happy to confirm that the theatre tickets were still available before he told Merlin about his unsuccessful tour of London hospitals the previous day. “To cut a long story short, sir, none of the doctors or nurses I spoke to have seen any live victims of botched abortions in their wards for a while. Plenty of dead ones but…”
“None able to tell us anything. Any new gossip?”
“No, sir.”
“Very well. Let’s have a think. Meanwhile, I have a little news for you. The AC has seconded…” Merlin was interrupted by the telephone. It was WPC Robinson.
“Just got a call from Notting Hill police, sir. They’ve got a body in a flat, just off the Portobello Road. A man. Shot dead.”
“We’ll meet you downstairs by the car, Constable. Come on, Sergeant. Another body for us.”
On the stairs, they found Goldberg on his way up and Robinson making her way down. Merlin made the introductions quickly and invited Goldberg to come along.
It was a short Saturday-morning drive to Notting Hill and Bridges was soon pulling the car up outside a small, blue-painted terraced house within shouting distance of Portobello Market. The house was on the southern side of the street, which appeared to have survived the Blitz largely intact. The northern terrace opposite had been less fortunate – only a few houses were still standing am
idst crumbling ruins and bomb craters. A group of children was having a grand old time scampering over the debris. Bridges walked over to the youngsters.
“You boys and girls better take care. Any of those walls there could collapse right on top of you.” The children paid attention for a moment, then took their cue from the obvious gang leader, a lanky and grimy boy of 14 or so, who sneered at Bridges before leading the children around a corner and out of view.
“Shouldn’t these areas be cordoned off, Frank?”
“They should, Bernie. No doubt the ARP wardens or someone will get round to it but there are other priorities.” Goldberg nodded and stood back, allowing Merlin and his officers to precede him into the house.
The house was divided into three small flats and the crime scene was on the second floor. On the first floor, Merlin found a constable from the local station being subjected to a tirade from a large, middle-aged woman in curlers. “It’s a disgrace these foreigners coming in here with their filthy habits and filthy friends. I told Albert, when that man took that room a few weeks ago, he looked like a wrong ’un. Oily skin, garlic breath and a tatty wig. Wheezing and sweating all the time. Said he was a doctor. What sort of doctor I don’t know. The people who came to see him all looked like wrong ’uns to me.”
The woman paused to draw on a cigarette, the ash of which she had been sprinkling liberally on everyone and everything in her near vicinity. Merlin brushed his coat and acknowledged the constable’s salute with a nod. The woman looked down her nose at Merlin before squeezing past and clattering down the stairs.
“Mrs Brampton. Landlord’s wife. Has the place on the ground floor. The flat you want is up on the second floor, sir. Inspector Venables is there.”
“Dear old Inspector Venables, eh? Thank you, Constable.” Merlin led his team up the next flight of stairs. There was an open door on the next landing and he walked through it into a small hallway. On his left was a small sitting area and ahead of him was another open door, through which he could see a familiar hairless head bobbing up and down. A dreadful stench pervaded the flat.
“Good morning, Inspector Venables. Been transferred, have we?”
Venables welcomed Merlin with a wintry smile. He was a thin and ungainly fellow, whose over-large Adam’s apple bounced around his neck as if it had a life of its own. “Merlin, how are you? Yes, they moved me over from Barnes a while ago. Shortage of experienced and first-rate officers in town. Nothing much happening in Barnes. Last serious incident was the one I helped you out with last January – that poor girl in the river.”
Merlin couldn’t remember the inspector being particularly helpful to him in the sad case of Joan Harris, but he let that pass. “Well, good to see you again, Hector. So what do we have here?”
Merlin looked at the corpulent body lying face down on the bed. Beside the shattered head lay a bloody pillow.
“Awful smell, eh? Poor fellow lost control of his bowels at some point. Well, it’s pretty straightforward.” Venables paused to shake out remnants of tobacco and dribble from his pipe before starting to reload it. Merlin remembered that this process took a while and took advantage of the hiatus to look around the room. There was a small desk by the window that looked out on to the street, a chest of drawers next to it, a bedside table and, on the other side of the bed, an oak wardrobe with a large suitcase resting on top of it.
Venables finally finished his pipe operation and pointed at the pillow. “Three shots in the head, through this. Pretty efficient job I’d say. No-one in the house admits to having heard any noise. The residents have got into the habit of leaving the downstairs front door on the latch so they can get out of the house quickly during air raids. The door to this flat was not forced so we presume the victim let his murderer in.
“The landlord, who lives downstairs, came calling for rent at around nine this morning. There was no answer, of course, but he could smell the stench through the letterbox. He had his key with him, came in and found our friend. He moved the pillows but claims to have touched nothing else and nor have we.
“The doctor and the forensic team are on their way. The landlord says the gentleman arrived in April. Introduced himself as a Mr White but the landlord thinks that wasn’t his real name – it didn’t matter because his money was good. Says he was obviously a foreigner of some sort. The landlord’s wife – that awful woman downstairs – has been shouting that he was ‘a filthy frog’. I haven’t done anything apart from those interviews as I’ve been reminded by my sergeant that we are meant to call you fellows in the event of our encountering the violent death of an alien, so…”
“You did the right thing, Hector. Thank you for your patience. Ah, here are the forensic team. We’ll let them get to work, shall we?”
A tedious hour and a half later, Merlin was finally given clearance by the forensic officers to start examining the victim’s personal possessions. Venables and his officers had retreated to interview the neighbours and keep an eye on the large crowd that had gathered outside the house. The doctor had been and gone and estimated the time of death at somewhere between four and seven that morning. The body now lay on its back on the bed awaiting the mortuary van.
Merlin put on his gloves and checked that the rest of the team had done the same. They began their work. The dead man’s clothes of the day before had been thrown down untidily on the floor. Apart from undergarments, socks, tie, shoes and a sweat-stained white shirt, there was a double-breasted pin-striped suit, which looked like it had seen better days. In the pockets of the suit Merlin found a comb, a leather wallet, a pair of pince-nez glasses, a small gold ring, a sheet of headed notepaper from the Ritz hotel with a telephone number on it, four £5 notes, three £1 notes, a half-crown and a threepenny bit.
Robinson’s haul from the chest of drawers was a selection of shirts, socks and underclothes, an old photograph and an advertisement for a medical agency. Bridges went through the navy overcoat, a second suit and two pairs of trousers, which he and Merlin found in the wardrobe along with a pair of braces and two pairs of black shoes. He found more loose change, a railway ticket, the stub of a cinema ticket and an almost empty packet of Gitanes cigarettes.
When Merlin was satisfied that they had got everything out of the wardrobe, Goldberg lifted down the suitcase and put it on the floor. It jangled as he did so. The suitcase was locked but Goldberg easily picked its lock with a small pen-knife. It opened to reveal a black bag that contained a selection of medical and surgical instruments, pill boxes and medicine bottles.
Merlin looked back at the body on the bed and thought of the hotel clerk’s description of the navy-coated, fat, bearded, foreign visitor to Room 14. He thought of the Gitanes cigarette stub found in the room and of the downstairs neighbour’s description of the man as a ‘filthy frog’.
“You know, Sergeant, I think fate has made recompense for your wasted legwork yesterday. I believe we have found our abortionist.”
* * *
Philip Arbuthnot’s eyes slowly cracked open. A thin ray of sunlight had forced its way through a small gap in the bedroom curtains and was illuminating the glass of water on his bedside table. He stretched out his arms and legs and realised that he was not alone. Which one was it? The working of his brain was inhibited by the fierce thudding in his head. He levered himself up and examined the back of his companion’s head. Brunette. A short perm. Janey. He reached out and his hand encountered a slightly over-plump buttock. Definitely Janey. She muttered an endearment and reached out a hand in return, finding the inside of his leg to stroke. Arbuthnot twisted around to look at the clock on his bedside table. Past noon already. He remembered the telegram with a sudden jolt. His father. There were things to do. He removed Janey’s wandering hand.
“Sorry, darling. Time to get up.” He slid out of bed, went into the bathroom and ran himself a bath. It was on hungover mornings like this that he missed Clarke, his valet, who had signed up for service shortly after his father and who was now somewhere in nort
h Africa. He’d decided not to replace Clarke because he had been facing his father’s wrath about dropping out of Cambridge and the threatened withdrawal of his allowance. Although that had all blown over, he’d kept the status quo. As he lay back soaking in the bath, Arbuthnot again found it difficult to suppress the positive feelings about his father’s death. He was free! He was rich! He could do what he liked. He could have a valet, a butler, a maid or two – pretty, of course – a driver, a fancy new car. Arbuthnot made a full list in his mind of the acquisitions he could make and the order in which he would make them. He was just evaluating the pros and cons of purchasing a boat at a time when the war precluded cruising down to the Riviera, when a naked Janey appeared, gave him a sly grin, then joined him in the bath. “Scrub my back please, Philip.”
An hour later, Arbuthnot was dressed, in his study and waiting for Janey to appear. He had just telephoned Wheeler’s of St James’s to book a table for a late lunch. A few glasses of chablis would soon clear his thick head. “Hurry up, darling. I’ve booked a table for one-forty-five.” There was a muffled reply from the bedroom. Arbuthnot picked up the telephone lead and toyed with it. There were people he should tell about his father’s death. There were his grandmother and aunt up in Northampton. There was Tomlinson, of course. And his father’s man of business, his aide-de-camp as he liked to call him, Sidney Fleming. A rather creepy individual, Philip had always thought, but his father had regarded him as invaluable.
As he lifted the receiver his companion appeared, looking rather striking in a bright blue outfit she’d left in the flat on a previous visit. He decided to postpone the sad task of informing family and friends of his father’s passing. What would another day matter, after all? It wasn’t as if there was a funeral to organise. “Ready, for the fray, Janey darling? I could murder half a dozen oysters and some cold lobster.”
* * *
