by George Sims
Katie got into her black Mini saying: ‘Fool. I didn’t get dressed up like this to impress Master Crest—it’s just that Blencowe has this very lovely girl friend Sandy and I thought I must make an effort.’
Buchanan studied her in profile as they turned into Welbeck Way and then Welbeck Street. Her driving was so good that he could completely relax in her car, which was unusual for him. She looked round and smiled. ‘There’s a kind of party going on at Homer Street, but then there nearly always is. I mean, most evenings Blencowe seems to have people round. He’s quite successful, makes a lot of money and appears to want to spend every penny. Yes, bottles start being opened very early in the evening chez Blencowe. “We’ll warm up the ice-cubes” is his usual greeting. He was married with kids but the wife went off, beautiful Sandy appeared, and now it’s live-today-and-forget-tomorrow. Anyway you’ll see. Oh yes, there’s something else. While we were walking round Hampstead Heath poor Bee had two more phone-calls from Freedson in Amsterdam. Now, apparently, he’s quite frantic about there being something he must give to her, wants her to go to Amsterdam on Monday.’
‘If she doesn’t fancy that I’ll go for her,’ Buchanan said quickly. ‘I’m keen on getting this mystery unravelled, I like flying trips, I like Amsterdam, I’d like to meet Harry Freedson for that matter. Yes, I’d gladly go if Bee wants me to.’
‘I’m sure she would. At the moment she doesn’t know what to say. She’s pulled both ways but mostly she’s scared. It would be marvellous if you could go.’
‘Monday I shall still be unemployed. It’s on Tuesday the queue of would-be employers will appear.’
‘Don’t sell yourself short, Ed. There’s plenty of time. We can think about it.’
Buchanan looked round at her quickly at the mention of the crucial pronoun and she looked back smiling. He felt foolishly happy at the idea of being considered as a partner by Katie, it opened up all kinds of possibilities, gave him a more positive outlook. He’d been a loner too long and was sick of it. Suddenly she laughed. ‘God, this kind of thing is damaging to one’s sense of direction. I work in this area, I live here, I should know the bloody one-way system by now. So how did I get lost?’
Buchanan had been oblivious of where they were, but glancing round he recognized Marylebone Road. Katie pulled up and said, ‘Probably risky doing this with an ex-copper but I’m going to back into a one-way the wrong way.’
She parked the Mini in front of a row of cars which practically filled Homer Street. The Marine Gallery showroom was only faintly lit from the stairs at the back of the shop but lights were on in two of the floors above, pop music was blasting from an open window, and as they got out of the car they heard the sound of a glass being smashed followed by loud laughter. Katie raised her eyebrows. ‘Sounds as if the ice-cubes started being warmed up early tonight. Still, Ralph’s a nice bloke. He wouldn’t have bothered to track down Master Crest otherwise. You see, he’s got a soft spot for Bee like a certain other character I know.’
Blencowe’s party had spilled down the stairs into the shop and one couple were engrossed in each other on a settle in the corner of the unlit gallery. They did not move when Buchanan tapped on the glass door, but after a few moments a short plump man hopped clumsily over another couple sitting on the bottom stair and came across to let them in. He approached the door with great care like a man told to walk a straight line at a police-station. He was about thirty-five, with an amiable expression, the foundations of a paunch, and eyes that did not seem to focus properly though he was able to recognize Katie, breathing a wine-smelling ‘Hello, darling’ and kissing her cheek. For the first time in his life Buchanan experienced a pang of what he supposed must be jealousy.
Once they were in the gallery Katie said, ‘Ralph Blencowe—Ed Buchanan.’ She seemed to be faintly amused by Blencowe, watching him as if he was doing a funny turn that might well become funnier.
Blencowe blinked a few times as he stared at Buchanan, seeming to have focusing trouble again with his protuberant eyes and leaning forward at a precarious angle. ‘Hello! hello! So glad that you could come. Most welcome.’
Katie said, ‘Ralph! There was a special reason. Don’t say you’ve forgotten.’
‘’Course didn’t…forget. Never…forget anything. Crest’s here all right.’ The words were slurred and appeared to be the product of great concentration. ‘He’s…two floors up at a…guesstimate. Remarkably handsome…self-possessed young man…must say. Seems to be…more at home here than I am. Have a little drink.’
There was a table covered with bottles and glasses placed strategically near the bottom of the stairs so that taking a drink seemed to be a compulsory practice on entering, like taking off shoes in a mosque. Blencowe picked up a bottle of champagne and sprayed it liberally over three glasses.
Katie raised her glass as if proposing a toast. ‘Thanks, Ralph. It was good of you. Bee’s very grateful.’ Then she raised it again in Buchanan’s direction and Buchanan, responding, knew the gesture had a secret significance for both of them.
Blencowe swayed forward a little and said, ‘Yesh, by all means…lesh find Crest. Sure he’ll make us all feel…quite welcome.’ He gulped down his champagne, put his glass on the table with exaggerated care and began to ascend the stairs, lifting his feet too high for the risers, displaying the stolid concentration of someone drunk and vague as to what he was doing. The first floor they came to was packed tight with an overflow of dancers from a large room erratically lit with brilliant coloured lights and images of silent movie films flickering on a white wall. The would-be dancers, jigging about to the Pink Floyd disc ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, were too crowded to make more than a show of movement. They were a modishly-dressed bunch and seemed to Buchanan to include a large percentage of upper-class characters, the kind who sometimes appear to be disguised as half-wits. Unable to move at all for some moments, Buchanan watched comic images of Charlie Chaplin being replaced by those of a doomed airship bursting into flames projected on the wall at the end of the room, and picked up snatches of conversation.
‘Upstart!’
‘Upshut!’
‘Temper, temper!’
‘Bring your muscles then.’
‘Just try that on for size.’
Blencowe turned round, his face glistening in the fitful flashes of bright light, saying confidentially, ‘S’not here. Was upstairs…think…talking to Sandy.’
They made slow progress through the dancers and couples sitting on the stairs to the next floor, where another large room was much less crowded, with dim conventional lighting and a record-player which was in the process of changing a French disc to one of Bobby Darin singing ‘My Buddy’:
Miss your voice, the touch of your hand
Just long to know that you understand
Your Buddy misses you.
Katie exchanged an amused glance with Buchanan. Being quite sober and not in a party mood they shared a feeling of detachment, like visitors to an institution. Blencowe stood in the doorway, swaying slightly, with a solemn expression, beckoning to one of the dancers. Buchanan thought that Blencowe’s finger pointed in the direction of two twin-like glamorous girls dancing together, but a moment later a tall young man dressed in a bomber jacket made of bleached calico with steel buttons, matching trousers and a navy-blue turtle-necked pullover came out of the room.
Blencowe blinked several times, made a fuddled introduction and then hesitated, looking as if he might be going to do it all over again.
Katie put out her hand to be shaken and said, ‘Thanks for coming. I worked for Leo Selver…the man who was found with Judy Latimer. We’re still very puzzled by all of it. No one seems to know anything about Judy. Did you know her well?’
The young man in the calico suit was unnaturally good-looking. His eyes were a pure green colour, like those of a cat, unusually large and with long black lashes. Buchanan did not gener
ally notice much about a man’s appearance but it was difficult not to take in Crest’s gleaming teeth and glossy blond hair. He had a strong jaw and a firm sharply-defined mouth which acted as a kind of antidote to his feminine eyes. He gazed intently at Katie and Buchanan on first seeing them but then appeared to lose interest. When Katie asked her question he shrugged.
‘No, not well. Somehow I doubt if anyone knew her well. At least, that’s the impression I got of her.’
Crest turned to look directly at Buchanan. ‘Are you with the police?’
‘No, but you’ll have to see them.’
‘Oh God, that’s just what I don’t need at the moment, getting involved with the noddies. I’ve got this trip to Hong Kong coming up. And it’s important.’
Buchanan knew he could no longer perform at ‘ten tenths’ in a Formula One car, but he was equally sure that his perceptiveness about people had never been keener. He prided himself on an ability to observe things that were revealing—involuntary gestures, sighs, flashes of malice. With Crest he felt baffled: it was like tuning into a wireless broadcast and getting a jumbled signal. His face was like a handsome mask; he was unusually self-possessed and still; it was impossible to think of him making a nervous gesture.
Buchanan said, ‘No reason why they should take up much of your time. Probably just a few minutes to get some background information. Apparently her landlord and the neighbours in Stephen Street knew next to nothing about her. The police found out she had foster parents in Leicester, but that was a blind alley because they hadn’t seen her for some years.’
Crest nodded at this, then motioned that they should walk along to the end of the passage where no one else was standing. Katie and Buchanan did so but Blencowe, blinking rapidly, began to walk cautiously back towards the stairs.
‘Those awful people in Leicester were a lot to blame—I mean, for Judy being so mixed-up and insecure. She looked good so people got the wrong impression. Really she lacked all confidence in herself. Could be built up in a moment. Or destroyed just like that, say the wrong word to her. Apparently that chap in Leicester fancied her, tried something on a couple of times, and his wife was jealous. That’s why Judy ran away to London. She hated “Uncle Jack”, got nervous if she even spotted anyone who looked like him. She was always talking about going abroad where he couldn’t follow her.’
‘Did you know she was going? Had her bags packed in fact.’
Crest’s Adonis-like face still served as a mask. He hesitated for a moment but Buchanan was unable to tell whether it was because he was considering the matter or preparing a lie.
‘No, but I’m not surprised. It was an obsession of hers, this idea that her troubles would all end if she could only get to the Eldorado they call New York. An illusion of course.’ His tone indicated his strictly neutral attitude to other people’s hopes and illusions.
Katie regarded Crest coolly; with him she seemed unable to produce her normally friendly manner. ‘Did she ever mention Leo to you?’
This time Crest did not hesitate. ‘No. But then she hardly ever talked about personal matters to me. I spotted her once with a Chinese girl, otherwise she always seemed to be on her own. We worked together earlier this year, that’s how I met her. You know the kind of thing, posing on a beach in Torquay in March, pretending that we were basking by the Mediterranean. While we were shivering and waiting for the sun to come out we discovered that we lived about five minutes from each other. I used to bump into her shopping in Goodge Street. We had a drink a couple of times. She chatted about jobs, the scarcity of jobs, and of being hard up. That’s about it. What on earth can the police make out of that?’ Crest looked back up the passage. For a moment it looked as if he had already forgotten what they were talking about.
‘About jobs?’ Buchanan asked. ‘Do you know who she worked for recently?’
‘A crummy joint called the Blue Eyes Studio, in Greek Street. They specialize in those dreary naughty-nightie ads, the terrible black-net jobs which are supposed to provoke failing husbands. Shouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t make the odd skinflick there too. Awful dump. But then Judy wasn’t having much luck. She had to take what she could get.’ Crest patted his pockets as if searching for cigarettes and said ‘Poor Judy’ in an absent way. There was an unmistakable aura of boredom about him, as if he had been let into the Secret of the Universe and found out it was not very interesting. ‘Was there an inquest?’
‘Adjourned. Till two weeks from now. Westminster Coroner’s Court.’ Katie gave Crest another cool, appraising look as she said this.
‘What about—I mean, what happened to the body?’
‘University College mortuary.’
Buchanan added an explanation. ‘In cases of murder, the body belongs to the State till the police inquiries are finished. Relatives don’t get possession of the body till that time, when it is released to them with a letter from the Home Office.’
‘Ed was with the police,’ Katie said, as though giving his account authority.
Buchanan thought: That is the kind of introduction I can do without. Anyone hearing it would ponder the verb ‘was’ and probably not give him the benefit of the doubt. But he knew why Katie had mentioned it, to try to prop up Crest’s decision to see the police. He said, ‘If you go along to the Tottenham Court Road station tomorrow, I’m sure you’ll find the matter will be dealt with promptly. Can’t think that it need interfere with any of your travel plans.’
‘All right. I’ll do that then. Shall I mention seeing you?’
‘They won’t have heard of me. Just say you want to see Inspector Machin regarding the dead girl found in the Stephen Street flat.’
‘Okay. Now I think I could use another drink.’ Crest looked at Katie to see if she would join him but she shook her head as she smiled faintly, saying, ‘Right then. Well, thanks again for coming here. Perhaps we’ll see you later?’
‘Fine.’ Crest seemed satisfied with this vague arrangement. His mouth twisted into an actor’s flashing grin but his eyes remained cold. He walked away quickly towards the room where dated, smoochy music was being played.
Buchanan was struck by the odd feeling that Crest had given them a vital clue about the Selver mystery, but a moment later his mind hopped nimbly away from this intuitive sensation and he began to review the banal information they had been given about Judy’s foster parents, Crest’s first meeting with Judy in Torquay, the Blue Eyes Studio in Greek Street.
Katie whispered, ‘What a cold fish! Poor Judy indeed! A lot he cares. How about ending up with Master Crest as your best friend? Quite a character, Mr Narcissus.’
‘Very good-looking.’
‘Oh yes. Beautiful in fact—but rather frightening really. Like that boy in the fairy-tale about the Snow Queen, the one who got the snowflake in his eye. Heartless. Do you think he’ll go and see Machin?’
‘I should think so. He’d be very foolish not to now he’s told us.’
Buchanan smiled at Katie and put his arm round her as they walked along the passage and down the stairs to find Blencowe, but he was still considering the scant information they had been given and pondering his strange intuition.
Chapter XVIII
When Ed Buchanan arrived in Amsterdam, ‘the city of bells and bicycles’, it was raining hard. There had been an ominous pall of grey cloud at Schiphol Airport stretching across the Zuider Zee, now renamed Ijsselmeer, but the large drops did not start to fall till the KLM bus entered the city terminal in the Museumplein.
In his brief motor-racing period of affluence, Buchanan had stayed in Amsterdam at the Amstel and the Krasnapolsky: travelling at Beatrice Selver’s expense, he had decided to spend the night in a more modest hotel he had once spotted in the Leidsegracht. It had been his original plan to fly in and out of the city in one day, leaving only a few hours to collect whatever it was that Harry Freedson considered to be so impor
tant or precious. The plan had been changed during the course of Sunday and three long telephone calls from Freedson to Beatrice, calls in which Freedson at first refused to hand the treasure over to anyone apart from Bee and then gradually came round to dealing with Buchanan after having been given profuse assurances about his trustworthiness. Even so, Freedson had been unwilling to make a definite appointment for a meeting or to divulge his address in Amsterdam. The only firm arrangement he would make was that Buchanan should call in at the office of a Mr H. V. de Kort, a lawyer whose business address was on the Keizersgracht.
Amsterdam came high on the list of Buchanan’s favourite cities and it was not necessary to twist his arm to persuade him to prolong his trip. On previous visits he had seen a few of the touristic ‘places of interest’ but he had spent happier hours mooching round the old Jordaan area, and he hoped to revisit it once the business with Freedson was concluded. Even the light in the Jordaan seemed to be grey and something indefinable from bygone centuries lingered there, where hundreds of little houses were packed closely together and the Jordaners called each other ‘Uncle’ and ‘Aunt’, keeping up a close-knit community tradition; where you could hear accordion music and quavery old voices singing in the café ‘De Twee Zwaantjes’.
After booking a room for the night at the Hotel De Leydsche Hof, and receiving a welcome that would put many British hotels to shame, Buchanan set out to get a snack before calling at de Kort’s office. Despite the steady rain he was already enjoying his trip. The Dutch said the British were something like them, having lost an empire and kept a monarchy and a taste for beer; Buchanan felt there were other more important links but he had a taste for beer and was looking forward to a glass of it with a sandwich.
Once he had started walking along the canals his eyes were continually taken by the different gables on the merchants’ houses, a shop selling rag dolls and puppets, a street-organ brilliantly painted with peacocks, roses and stars. The delicious smell of coffee being ground attracted him to a ‘brown café’ on the Singel where he ordered a broodje ros, a sandwich of thin slices of rare roast beef in a bun, and a light Pils beer.