by A J Waines
I switched the radiator on in the spare room, made myself look vaguely presentable and waited for the doorbell to ring. It was the hardest day of my life: sitting there trying to be understanding and sympathetic when I knew someone’s life was in danger and had the terrible feeling the police had gone off on the wrong track.
10.48 came and went that morning and no messages popped up on my phone.
At lunchtime, I finally left a message with Brad, saying that I thought they were wrong to focus on the bridge in Newcastle. My message fizzled out, because I couldn’t explain myself; I couldn’t give a valid reason for how I knew. Call it gut-reaction, intuition, ESP, whatever you like - I just knew.
After my last client, there was a text waiting for me. It was from Brad telling me that everything was quiet according to the Northumbrian police, but that they were getting police boats into the water and plenty of officers staking out the bridge. He didn’t refer to my message.
I rang Derek Moorcroft as a last resort, to ask him if he could see any different angles. He told me there were royal connections with nearly all the main London bridges. He also said that high tide that day didn’t occur at 10.48 at any of them - morning or evening.
‘Can we forget 10.48 for a minute,’ I snapped. ‘Are there any specific references to Edward VII and any of the London bridges?’
I knew there were thirty London bridges over the tidal part of the Thames. That was a heck of a lot of bridges for the police to keep watch over. We had to narrow it down.
‘I’m doing my best, Ms Grey. My mother’s not well…and I’ve had problems with my computer today.’
‘Then go to a library. Find another computer. I’m convinced the Newcastle bridge isn’t the right place.’ I was starting to sound hysterical, but I didn’t care anymore.
I’m not sure who ended it, but the call was over abruptly and I was fuming.
Thankfully in the steam of the moment, another idea came to me. Jackie had once said her grandmother was a historian. I had a vague recollection that she’d written a book about some aspect of London’s history. Edward VII was born in 1841. Had the old lady, by any chance, written about the nineteenth century? The odds weren’t that great, but maybe she could refer me to the right person, if British monarchs weren’t her field. The only problem was, I was seriously running out of time.
Jackie wasn’t in when I tapped on her door, but she’d given me her mobile number and I got straight through.
‘She lives in Teddington,’ she said, ‘I’m sure she’d love a visit.’ She gave me the address.
‘It won’t be a sociable call, I’m afraid. Could you tell her to expect me? I need to see her - as soon as possible. Don’t suppose you could come too?’
‘I’m working the nightshift, otherwise I would.’
‘Don’t worry.’
‘She’s eighty…and her memory has been…how can I put it…slightly wayward in the last few years.’
‘Thanks for the warning,’ I said. I went outside and spotted PC Zac Nwoso sitting in a car a few spaces behind mine. I knew I wasn’t supposed to make obvious contact, but I strode over and tapped on the glass.
‘I’m going to Teddington, Zac,’ I said, as the window slid down. I didn’t add that I might be breaking the speed limit.
On a good day, Putney to Teddington would take me twenty-five minutes. That day, it took me sixteen. My right foot was barely off the floor and I cut through several orange lights and skipped a red one altogether. I hoped PC Nwoso would understand - or be too exhausted to notice.
Chapter Twenty-one
I found the right avenue and pulled up outside number fifty-four. Mrs Dalton was already standing at the front door in a frilly pinafore straight from another century. It was chilly; she should have been waiting inside. I waved to PC Nwoso and pointed to the house, as I locked the car.
‘Are you meals on wheel?’ she said. It turned out Mrs Dalton hadn’t been waiting for me.
I apologised for disappointing her and said Jackie had given me her address.
‘Who’s Jackie?’ she said. She looked down at her bootie-style slippers as if there was something she ought to know that wasn’t quite slipping into place. A grey terrier that looked like it used to be white, ducked between Mrs Dalton’s legs and started barking and grabbing at my trouser legs with bared teeth.
‘Bonaparte, leave the lady alone.’ The dog ignored her. ‘I said, stop it!’ came the woman’s voice, completely out of proportion with her diminutive size. A trait that Jackie had inherited, I noted.
The dog darted back inside and Mrs Dalton invited me to follow him, although she still clearly had no idea who I was or what I wanted.
A thought occurred to me.
‘Your dog, Bonaparte,’ I said. ‘Is that because you are an expert on that area of history?’
‘Me? No. I’m much earlier,’ she said.
That didn’t bode well.
She led me through the hall into the sitting room. It was like an entire exhibition from the Victoria and Albert Museum condensed into one tiny space. There were swirls everywhere: in the carpet, wallpaper, the curtains and embroidered into the three-piece-suite, all competing with one another. Every shelf held a vase or ceramic bowl with more swirls, only these were exclusively in blue and white. It was dazzling to the eye and I took a step back as we entered.
‘Bit of a collector, as you can see,’ she said. ‘There’s William Morris, William de Morgan and some of the pottery is original Wedgwood. My grandfather knew Rudyard Kipling, you know.’
I made a mental note to check with Jackie that her gran had adequate household insurance. Mrs Dalton offered me tea and when she was out of the room, my eye was drawn, amongst the mass of conflicting designs, to a cabinet on the wall. It looked like it was made of rosewood and had ivory portrait medallions inlaid into it. It was exquisite. I could spend ages in here, I decided, if I wasn’t on such an urgent mission. I vowed to come back with Jackie, another time.
Having taken a sip of tea, I realised Mrs Dalton had filled the jug with condensed milk. My instinct was to spit it straight out, but I had to quietly gag and swallow, hoping she wasn’t watching me. Fortunately, she was preoccupied with Bonaparte who was snuffling around her feet.
‘I’m a friend of your granddaughter,’ I said. ‘She said you are an expert on history.’
‘In my day,’ she said, sitting upright with her hands folded in her lap, as though it was a press interview.
‘Which era did you specialise in?’
‘Roman London, dear. I wrote a book about it. I have a copy of it here.’
I couldn’t hide a groan. Shit. Completely the wrong era. This was a waste of time. I browsed through a few yellowing pages of the hardback book she handed me to be polite.
‘Did you want to buy a copy?’ she said, hopefully, bending over me.
‘Not today, I don’t think.’ Time was pressing on. I tried a long shot. ‘I wondered if you’d ever studied Edward VII at all?’
‘The nineteenth century isn’t my period, I’m afraid. Roman London, did I tell you?’
We were about as far away from Edward VII as London is from the Falkland Islands.
‘More tea?’
I declined, struggling now with how to proceed.
‘You don’t happen to know anything about the bridges in London do you? Their history?’ Clutching at straws, now.
‘Can’t say I do. Did I tell you my grandfather knew Rudyard Kipling?’
‘Yes. I think you did.’
I was going to have to draw this to a close. I reached for my bag.
‘Did you want to see some photographs?’ she said.
My heart was still on double-time, pumping fast, urging me to get moving, but I knew there was nowhere for me to go, no other avenues for me to try. I’d reached a dead end. I decided to give it five more minutes and then make my excuses.
Mrs Dalton pulled out a wooden box from under an armchair. Inside was a stack of well-thumbed bla
ck and white photographs and postcards. Her pride and joy were at the top: two pictures showing Rudyard Kipling standing beside a man she pointed out was her grandfather.
‘You said bridges didn’t you?’ she said. She sniffed and a mist of puzzlement stole the animation from her eyes. It was like a light coming on and then swiftly going off again.
‘My father was a historian, like me,’ she said, feeling her way back into the conversation again. ‘He didn’t write a book like I did, but he worked at the London Museum when it was at Lancaster House. Around 1935, that would be.’
‘Did he have an interest in the London bridges?’ I asked, trying to nudge her back in that direction.
‘Who’s that, dear?’
‘Your father.’
‘Oh, him. He lived in Kew. There’s a picture here.’
She flicked through photos deeper in the box, her mind still able to recall how she’d mentally catalogued them. ‘Here it is.’
It was a photograph of a man proudly holding a little girl on his shoulders at the end of a bridge. There was bunting behind them and crowds of people. She turned the picture over to read what was on the back.
‘This was 1903, when Kew Bridge was opened. It was the third one. Too much traffic, so they had to build a new one. This is my grandfather again, with Doris, my mother. She would have been three-years-old, then…’
I let her carry on in her Tinker Bell voice until something she said made me sit bolt upright.
‘Can you say that again?’ I said.
‘The king opened the bridge. Edward VII. My grandfather met him, too.’
‘Edward VII opened Kew Bridge?’
‘Yes. In 1903. It was known as the Edward VII Bridge for a while and then everyone went back to calling it Kew Bridge.’
I got to my feet and the dog leapt up, barking again.
‘Mrs Dalton - you have been fantastic.’ I leant forward and gave her a bone-crushing hug. ‘Thank you so much. This has been really helpful. I’ve got to go.’
I ran through the hall and out to the road, my hand inside my handbag trying to locate my phone.
‘It’s Kew Bridge,’ I shouted to PC Nwoso, as I waited for Brad’s number to connect. Zac’s forehead creased into a concertina of bewilderment.
‘Brad. Listen. Edward VII opened Kew Bridge in 1903. It was known as the Edward VII Bridge for a while. The clue I was given was just the time and date of Edward VII’s birth - it’s the link to a London bridge we’ve been looking for, it has to be the one.’ I’d said it all in one breath and was nearly doubled over, leaning on the car door.
‘I’ll check with Derek Moorcroft. You could be on to something. We’ll need to get the times of high tide for the rest of the day at Kew. Good work, Juliet.’
My watch said it was gone 8pm. It had already been dark for several hours. I only hoped we weren’t too late.
When I pulled up on a side-road close to Kew Bridge, I knew straight away that something was wrong. There were too many people about. Many of them were holding long-lens cameras.
‘Get these bloody reporters out of the area,’ shouted an officer in uniform. ‘The killer’s going to spot them a mile off.’ A group of his colleagues across the road started wading into the crowd. ‘Get a move on!’ he screamed.
He turned round and saw me. ‘You! I don’t know who you are, but move your car. Clear the area. This is a police operation.’ He flapped his arms as though he was under attack by a swarm of bees.
I did as I was told and parked a couple of streets further away. By the time I came back, the crowd had thinned out, but it was still far too busy for an ordinary Monday evening. I spotted Brad talking to a group of officers and they, in turn, started speaking to people individually. The ones holding the cameras began nodding and moving away. Brad walked towards me.
‘What a disaster. The press have got hold of it. It’s a hive of activity up here and we need everything to look as normal as possible.’
His radio crackled and he clipped an earpiece over his ear. He listened for a moment, then stepped forward. ‘Get everyone off the road, now. Speak to them one by one, DC Blake, don’t try and herd them like cattle!’
Brad turned to me. ‘The SIO is on her way…she’ll do her nut if she sees this.’
‘Is it best if I go?’
‘See that place over there?’ he pointed to a café in a short row of shops. ‘Go and wait inside. I’ll join you when I’ve sorted this mess out.’
It was a typical greasy-spoon: chequered tablecloths overprinted with the rings left by mugs of builder’s tea and brown net curtains that hadn’t been cleaned since the smoking ban. Customers and staff all had the same worn faces and no one seemed to notice the upheaval on the bridge. The menu-board read: Bubble and Sqweek in red felt-tip. The wonky block-capitals sloped down to the right, as if the letters had gradually got too heavy. The flickering fluorescent tubes and piped muzak vied with each other for the most irritating feature award.
I didn’t trust the coffee, so I asked for a mineral water and sat by the window. The bridge itself was made of grey stone in three sweeping arches, lit from above by lantern-style streetlamps. The café bell tinged and Brad came in. He asked for the manager and had a quick word with a short, plump man bound in blue aprons. He came over to my table.
‘We’re clearing the all-night café and putting plain clothes officers in their place,’ he said.
‘That’ll be a treat for them.’
‘We’ve got boats on the river and divers at the ready, with officers at each end of the bridge. There’s a helicopter if we need it. I think we’ve got everything covered.’
‘When’s high tide?’ I looked at my watch.
‘3.02 - five hours away.’
‘The next woman could be dead by now,’ I said, stabbing my finger into a pile of spilt salt on the table. ‘He gets them into the water when it’s high tide, but —’
He leant forward and pressed his finger over my lips. ‘Shush. That’s not helping.’
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Can I treat you to a coffee?’
‘I can’t stay long. Remind me to take you somewhere nice when this is all over.’
It sounded flippant. I didn’t want to read too much into it. ‘Listen, before I go, I wanted to fill you in on Cheryl Hoffman and her brother.’
‘Good. I’m still struggling with that.’
‘Cheryl and Leyton Meade were born in America. He’s a couple of years older. He was a platoon leader during the Vietnam war and in 1969 he was indicted for war crimes during the My Lai massacre, but never charged. There was a massive cover up involving twenty six soldiers, many of whom were officers, but only one was ever convicted.’
A high-pitched croak slipped from my mouth.
‘Hundreds were killed,’ he continued. ‘Mostly women and children.’ He lowered his head. ‘Beaten, raped and tortured.’
I gripped the collar of my coat. ‘And Cheryl’s brother was part of that?’
‘Never convicted…but, from the reports I’ve seen, it looks like there was some vigorous brushing under large expanses of carpet going on - if you get my meaning.’ He pulled a creased sheet out of his pocket. It was a grainy photograph printed from a computer. ‘I wanted to show you this. See if his face rings any bells. It’s from a few years ago.’
I stared at the picture. It looked like it had been taken in a steamed-up bathroom, but I could make out a stern face with a thick moustache. He reminded me of a character in a play by Chekhov.
I shook my head and handed it back. ‘Okay - so how does he fit in?’ I said.
‘Cheryl came to the UK with her mother when she was six years old, but Leyton stayed with his father. He’s lived in the US mostly, but like Cheryl, he’s travelled a lot - arrested several times for domestic violence, assaults, one case of kidnapping - but unbelievably, he was never ever charged with anything.’
‘Must have had a cracking lawyer.’
He lowered his voice again, even though no on
e else looked remotely awake, never mind interested. ‘Get this - all the attacks were against women and one of them, in 2008, had undergone a recent termination.’ He flared his nostrils. ‘Leyton came to the UK, arrived in London, two months ago.’
‘Did he now?’ I trailed a teaspoon across the table cloth. ‘Plus,’ he continued, ‘Cheryl also came to us recently offering to “help”.’
‘I see. We did say we should be on the lookout for someone doing just that.’ I tapped my fingers against my temple. ‘But where’s Leyton and Cheryl’s connection with me? She joined Holistica a few months before I did - I’ve never met her, or heard of either of them, before that.’
He shrugged. ‘Early days. We’re delving into their family history to see what we can find and we’ve got surveillance on Leyton Meade. He’s renting a flat in Stockwell.’
A voice came over his radio and he got up to leave.
‘You think he could be here?’ I said, grabbing his sleeve at the last minute.
‘Let’s hope so. I’ll see you soon. Blend in.’
I sat there for a further two hours, sipping water and trying to read an abandoned Metro. Sure enough, there was an exchange of clientele in the café. The faces and apparel changed. Not a shabby raincoat in sight.
I felt stupid and lost sitting there, but I knew going home wasn’t an option. I wouldn’t sleep; I’d pace up and down, holding my phone with one hand, dipping the other into a box of Crunchy-nut Cornflakes. At least the food here was so unappealing I wouldn’t be tempted to comfort eat.
Brad reappeared after 11pm and crouched down beside me.
‘All’s quiet,’ he said. ‘Everyone’s in place - we just have to wait.’
His cheeks were rosy, but he looked edgy. I could only assume that the adrenalin was keeping him going.
‘I’ve been thinking about what you told me,’ I said. ‘Leyton Meade would be in his sixties - at best - if he was old enough to be an officer in charge at Vietnam.’ He nodded. ‘Isn’t it a lot to expect a sixty-year-old to manhandle a dead body - even if the victims had small frames?’
‘He could be working with someone else - besides, Sylvester Stallone was still playing Rambo when he was sixty-one. I’m not saying Stallone’s the norm, but Leyton’s a chunky bloke. I’d say he was fit enough.’ He leant forward. ‘We’ve just had a useful piece of forensics.’ I envied his ability to remain chirpy in the face of the ominous uncertainty hanging over us all. ‘Aysha had scuff marks on her clothes, on one of her shoulders.’
