by R. N. Morris
‘You think that Felix killed Eve?’
‘We know that they spoke at the Purity Meeting at your father’s church shortly before your sister disappeared. Quite possibly Felix was the last person to speak to her before she died.’
‘Felix didn’t do it.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Because I know Felix.’
‘You don’t think he’s capable of murder?’
Adam shook his head dismissively. ‘He’s not capable of filching a bird’s egg.’
Quinn watched the boy closely. ‘Sometimes you think you know someone and it turns out you don’t know them at all.’
Adam said nothing. But Quinn noticed a strange look pass between him and his father, bitter and accusatory on Adam’s side; thoughtful, uncertain on his father’s.
‘Of course, I’m sure you’re right. We would just like to talk to him.’
‘We used to go to Mrs Simpkins’ house on Godolphin Avenue. They had a flat on the ground floor. 12a. I can see the house number in my mind’s eye.’
Quinn made a note of the address.
‘If that will be all?’ Pastor Cardew cut in smoothly. ‘My son has been under tremendous strain, as you can imagine. I don’t want him upset any more.’
Something like a sneer spasmed across Adam’s mouth. He didn’t seem to value his father’s protection very highly. ‘Oh, it’s all right, Father. Besides, we don’t want the detective thinking we have anything to hide, do we?’ Again a strange, dark look from son to father.
‘Why should he think that?’ Pastor Cardew’s deflection was coolly done, but Quinn sensed the faintest tremor of unease brimming.
Adam contented himself with a sly and humourless smile, the meaning of which only he knew.
Quinn waited until this particular exchange between father and son was played out. ‘You were the one who found her – Eve.’
‘Yes.’
‘How did you know where to look for her?’
Adam seemed startled by the question. ‘I didn’t. I looked everywhere I could think of.’
‘But there. That particular spot in Wormwood Scrubs Park. What made you think of looking there?’
‘It was somewhere we used to go. When we were children. I once made a den there with some chaps from school. It’s still there.’ There was a note of boyish pride in his voice.
Quinn scribbled the detail in his notebook frantically. ‘It must have been a good den. These chaps, was Felix one of them?’
‘No!’ There was a note of disdain in Adam’s reply.
‘So he didn’t know about this place?’
‘Eve might have told him, I suppose. They were very close at one time.’
Quinn turned a probing stare on Pastor Cardew, who maintained a look of unruffled composure, as if his son’s revelation had not proven him either a liar or a fool.
‘What about your other friends? Were any of them close to Eve?’
‘What do you mean, other friends? Felix wasn’t my friend. He was Eve’s friend. He was always too much of a mummy’s boy for my liking. I don’t know what Eve saw in him. But Eve always did have strange tastes.’ The merest flicker of something in his eyes this time.
‘But these other chaps. Were any of them interested in Eve?’
‘I shouldn’t think so.’
Out of the corner of his eye, Quinn sensed Pastor Cardew stir.
‘Why not?’
‘She used to scare them off. Too intense. Too weird. Too Eve.’ Adam broke off and glared at Quinn, as if the policeman had just made an indecent suggestion.
‘Thank you. You’ve been most helpful.’ Quinn rose from his chair and stood for a moment, waiting for Pastor Cardew and Adam to acknowledge the end of the interview. But the two of them were lost in their own thoughts.
THIRTY-FOUR
The address Adam had given him was a good half-hour’s walk away. The threat of rain hung in the air. Quinn felt it as an extra layer of pressure in his head. If the threat was made good, so be it. He had his trusty ulster on. If anything, the rain would be a relief. He wondered if that was how the chaps at the Front felt about it.
At last he came to the house on Godolphin Avenue. It was a large, prepossessing building in a street of similar properties, four storeys including the basement and an arch-windowed gable floor. All the windows were dressed with white stone architraves, in keeping with the pretensions of the original owners. A set of grand stone steps led up to a monumental front entrance, mounted with a small brick-built balcony. The entrance to the basement flat was tucked away below this to one side.
Quinn descended the steps to the basement and yanked the mechanical bell-pull, the answering clang coming after a split-second delay. He could hear no further sound from inside, no sign of anyone stirring to answer the door. After waiting a minute or so, he rang the bell again, this time pulling it continuously.
Eventually he heard footsteps slapping irritably on a tiled floor. He kept ringing, even as he heard the latch turning. As the door opened, a foreign-accented woman’s voice cried out, ‘All right, all right already, I hear you!’ Quinn released the bell-pull, which retracted in on itself with a snap.
The force of her voice had led him to expect someone larger. But her presence was nevertheless impressive, despite her lack of physical stature. She occupied her place in the world with a performer’s confidence, and there was something uncompromising about her appearance. She demanded you look at her, and met your gaze with unblinking candour. Her face was strong, with a wide jaw and prominent forehead. She was dressed picturesquely for the time of day, in something like an evening gown, black, with a décolletage neckline that exposed more of her chest than Quinn wished to see. She wore her very blonde hair in Alpine plaits. But the lines around her eyes and mouth told you she was no adolescent Heidi. Her expression was compressed into a hostile glower. ‘Who are you? Why are you not Felix?’
‘I beg your pardon, madam. My name is Detective Chief Inspector Quinn of New Scotland Yard.’ He flashed his warrant card.
The woman let out a shriek. ‘And so, you have come to arrest me, have you? A poor defenceless woman.’
‘But why should I want to arrest you?’
‘Because I am German. I have lived in this country for over twenty years. I married an Englishman. I pay my English taxes. I have a son who has abandoned me, and you come to harass me because I am German! Where is your pity? Have you no shame?’
‘In fact, it was about your son that I wished to speak to you. Felix Simpkins. You are Mrs Simpkins, I take it?’ Quinn cast a pointed look back over his shoulder. ‘May I come in?’
‘You will not arrest me?’
‘I promise you that I will not.’
Despite this assurance, Mrs Simpkins continued to protest: ‘Since when is it a crime to be born in one country and not another? Surely you must judge a person by what is in his heart, not where he is born? If you look into my heart, you will find it is very English. God save the King! I hate the Kaiser with a passion, do you hear me? The only thing I will say is that my husband was a wastrel. But I do not hold that against all Englishmen. But you! You hear one single thing bad against some German fellow and you will say that all Germans are monsters! How is that fair, I ask you?’
‘I assure you, Mrs Simpkins, your nationality is of no interest to me.’
‘You say that now, but the time will come when you will hunt me down like a rabid dog.’
For a moment, the force of her expression robbed Quinn of a response. He stood on the doorstep with his mouth gaping. It was this more than anything that seemed to incline her to relent. She opened the door fully for him to come in.
She led him into a room that was practically filled by a grand piano. There was space only for a couple of rather basic armchairs, placed awkwardly on either side of the chimney breast, slightly recessed from one another. Once they were seated, Quinn found that he had to lean forward to face Mrs Simpkins.
‘So this is w
here you give your lessons, is it?’
‘Of course. You are a very good detective, I think. What was it that gave it away?’
Quinn smiled. ‘You taught Pastor Cardew’s children, I believe. Adam and Eve.’
‘Adam and Eve! Who gives their children such names? It is cruel. Abominable.’ Mrs Simpkins suddenly fixed Quinn with a startled look. ‘It is not about that girl that you have come? You do not think my Felix had something to do with that?’
‘You said your son has abandoned you. Do you mean that he is missing?’
‘We had a quarrel … he will be back. He will come crawling back on his knees and hands, crying for his Mutter!’ The pads beneath her eyes were suddenly glistening with dampness. She breathed in a noisy snort of air through her nose. ‘I only hope he has not done a stupid thing.’
‘What stupid thing do you fear he might have done?’
The tears suddenly got the better of her. She could only bat away Quinn’s question wordlessly with one hand. Quinn waited silently until she was able to speak again.
‘We quarrelled. It has not been easy for me, bringing him up on my own. A boy needs a father’s influence.’ Mrs Simpkins looked at Quinn curiously. ‘Do you have children?’
‘No … I … am not married.’
She tilted her head backwards, as if under the impact of this information. ‘You are very wise.’
‘Do you have any idea where he might be?’
‘Oh, I have an idea! But I hope to God I am wrong.’
‘Go on.’
‘He said he would join the army! Can you imagine such a thing? Felix Simpkins a soldier!’
‘You do not think he would go through with it?’
Mrs Simpkins merely made a contemptuous noise.
‘Mrs Simpkins, when was the last time you saw your son?’
‘He will be back! Don’t you worry, he will be back.’
‘You remember going to the meeting at the Baptist church with him? He was seen there that day with you. Witnesses have come forward who said that Eve Cardew spoke to him.’
‘That girl! It is all her fault!’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘She gave him that awful feather.’
‘And it was as a result that Felix said he was going to join the army?’
‘Oh, he said it before! But would he do it? He would talk and talk and talk, but it is not the same as do, do, do. But when she gave him that feather, I saw it in his eyes. This time he would do it. I begged him, I pleaded with him.’ The nervous energy suddenly left her, like air from a burst balloon. She sank back in her chair, out of Quinn’s sight. ‘How could he do this to me?’
Quinn pulled his chair forward and sat on the edge of it, leaning across as far as possible to keep Mrs Simpkins in view. ‘When did he leave?’
‘What does it matter? He is gone. And not a word to his mother. He is probably in France now. In uniform. If he is not dead already. A bullet through his brain. I would not be surprised if one of his German cousins fired it. This is what happens when our countries go to war. The Kaiser is King George’s cousin, is he not?’
‘Could he not be staying with a friend?’
Mrs Simpkins’ eyes bulged incredulously. ‘A friend? Felix?’
‘A lady friend, perhaps?’
She snorted derisively.
‘It’s not so preposterous, is it? I hear that Eve Cardew was once quite smitten with him.’
‘What is this?’
‘Did you not know? When they were children, they were very close. Her brother has confirmed it.’
‘It was not very friendly what she did, I think.’
‘Perhaps he might be staying with someone from his place of work? Have you checked with his employers?’
Mrs Simpkins screwed her face up into a look of distaste. ‘This is what he wants. People running around after him. Just ignore him and he will come crawling back, I tell you.’
‘Sadly, madam, I cannot just ignore him. I have my work to do. Perhaps if you could give me his employer’s details?’
She wrinkled her nose and relented. ‘Griffin Mutual. That is where he works. It is in High Holborn. More than that I cannot tell you. He does not tell me anything, you see. I am only his mother. Why would he tell me?’
Quinn made a note. ‘I wonder, do you have a recent photograph of Felix?’
The woman let out a heavy sigh. This was all, evidently, more trouble than it was worth. All the same, she hauled herself out of her seat and disappeared from the room. A moment later she came back with a print of a photograph in a cardboard frame. It showed about thirty men in straw boaters, posed for a formal group photograph. ‘He had this in his room. It is him with his colleagues. I don’t know why it was taken. Perhaps they went on an excursion. I don’t remember.’ There was no hint of enjoyment or frivolity in the faces of the men, but this did not necessarily contradict Mrs Simpkins’ suggestion. She pointed to a figure standing at the end of the back row. ‘There. That is Felix.’
Quinn tried to read the face of the individual she had pointed out. Whether it was due to the youthfulness of the subject, or the deficiencies of the print, the face he saw seemed to lack any distinguishing features. It was almost like an absence of face, a blank, white shape on the photograph, with the merest dots and blobs to indicate his eyes and mouth, and barely a smudge where his nose should be. Judging by the men he stood next to, he seemed to be of average height, though his build was somewhat on the slight side. ‘May I take this with me? I will return it once we have concluded our inquiry.’
‘I have no need for it. I think I know what my son looks like. And I have no wish to look at these other men.’
Quinn took the photograph and handed Mrs Simpkins one of his cards. ‘Do you have a telephone?’
‘I do not. But the Gardeners have one.’
Quinn frowned quizzically.
‘The Gardeners live upstairs.’
‘If you hear from Felix, please call me. It’s very important that I talk to him. I need to eliminate him from our enquiries.’
‘They do not let me use it. The Gardeners. They do not let me use their telephone, because once I complained about the beastly noise it made while I was in the middle of a lesson.’ Mrs Simpkins gave her impression of a telephone ringing unanswered. ‘On and on it went! Oh my, you would not believe it! How am I supposed to listen to my pupil play with that din going on?’
‘Is there anyone else you can ask?’
‘Oh, they will let me use it if I tell them it is to report my own son to the police. That is how much they hate me.’
‘I simply need to talk to Felix, you do understand? It’s possible that he may know something that may help us find Eve Cardew’s murderer.’
Quinn stood up and nodded once with finality. But she showed no sign of stirring from her armchair. After a moment, he turned away and let himself out.
THIRTY-FIVE
There was no sign of Inchball back at the Yard, which put Quinn on edge. All around him, he sensed the hostile, suspicious glances of the other CID detectives. Coddington’s men. Whenever he returned their gaze, they would look away, or more often than not, turn their backs on him.
He was aware that he had been away from his desk for sometime. Almost certainly, his absence had been noted. Coddington was bound to have someone watching him, looking out for ammunition to use against him. Possibly, he had even been followed.
Quinn felt more alone than he had in a long time. Even in Colney Hatch, he had from time to time enjoyed the companionship of his fellow inmates.
He hung his ulster up on the shared coat stand. The other detectives’ bowlers filled the hat pegs in a defensive ring, like the closely packed shields of Roman legionaries in the testudo formation. There was no space for Quinn to hang his, so he kept it on his head.
Everything about the place conspired to repel him.
At his desk, he picked up the earpiece of the telephone, and when the operator came on the line aske
d her to connect him to the Griffin Mutual Company in Holborn. He hung up the earpiece and waited. A moment later, the clatter of the phone’s bells startled him.
Quinn identified himself to the speaker on the other end of the line and gave his business. After several fearful minutes during which it seemed that he had lost the connection more than once, he was put through to a man called Birtwistle.
‘Hello?’
Quinn had the photograph of the clerks from Griffin Mutual on his desk in front of him. He tried to work out which one was the man he was speaking to. It was probably the heavily built man in the centre of the front row, his long face soured by a sneer. ‘Hello, my name is Chief Inspector Quinn of New Scotland Yard CID. I wish to speak to one of your employees, a clerk by the name of Felix Simpkins.’
‘Felix Simpkins is no longer with us.’ It was hard to discern any real intonation in the voice that buzzed in his ear like a trapped wasp. But he sensed anger. Yes, it was certainly the fat man in the front row, Quinn decided.
‘I see. He has left your employment? Do you know where he has gone?’
‘I neither know nor care.’
‘He said nothing about his intentions?’
‘He said nothing. Not a dicky bird. In fact, he simply did not show up for work one day. Left me in the lurch and no mistake. I now consider his employment terminated. He had fair warning.’
‘When was this, the day he first failed to show up?’
Birtwistle took a moment to make his calculations. ‘That would have been Monday, the seventh inst.’
‘If he does turn up, would you be so good as to let me know?’ Quinn gave his name again and hung up.
Inchball still wasn’t back and Quinn was itching to share what he had discovered.
Somehow, whether by habit, or drawn by some instinct of attraction, he found himself outside Sir Edward’s office, standing over Lettice as she pounded away at her typewriter. It was several moments before she looked up. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I need to talk to you.’
Lettice looked nervously around her. ‘Not here.’