by M. H. Baylis
‘Cut. Back. Bitch!’ Bird suddenly bellowed. The Whittakers winced. The tiny nurse came bowling down the ward.
‘Now what’s all this nonsense about?’ she asked. She looked up at Rex. He expected she’d direct her fury at him, but her face suddenly crinkled up in concern.
‘You don’t look at all well.’
‘I’m fine,’ Rex said, as a strange sucking sound filled his ears, and his vision dimmed.
He felt better outside, with the drizzle on his face. He rang D.S. Brenard, and told him what Bird had just said, about the woman with the cut back.
Then he sat on a wall for a while, taking deep breaths. There was nothing seriously wrong with him, he was sure. It was just a cocktail of things: the sweetish stink and the heat of the hospital, and the strange revelations from Bird, and his own tiredness. And the painkillers. He was definitely overdoing it on the painkillers. He needed to cut down. Maybe he wouldn’t have any more tonight. Just lager.
In a huge new Polish supermarket on West Green Road he bought six cans of Okocim Mocne. His route back home took him right past Terry’s house. He had the idea of calling on him, to see if they could arrive at some sort of peace and understanding, then dismissed it. It was partly that Terry had genuinely scared the shit out of him. It was also on account of discovering that the woman next door at 326 was back. At least, her lights were on.
He rang the doorbell. It was a ponderous, electronic ‘ding-dong’ chime. Was that what Terry’s doorbell sounded like? He couldn’t remember ever hearing it. He tried to recall the woman’s name. Brenard had told him. Something to do with booze…
‘Miss Martell?’ he asked, remembering just as a freckled woman in a white dressing gown with a towel turbaned around her head opened the door.
She didn’t look pleased to be disturbed. He decided to cut to the chase.
‘Sorry, I just wondered – have you been at home recently? Were you here on Monday the 4th of April, or the day after, on the Tuesday?’
‘The police asked me that,’ she said in a clipped Kiwi accent. ‘And I had a note through the door from some reporter, asking me the same thing.’
‘That was me. Rex Tracey.’
She nodded, in a not-especially welcoming fashion. ‘The answer is not much. On Monday, I was in Clerkenwell, attending a workshop of the offices of an NGO until the late evening of the Monday, I got back here very late, packed, got a taxi to Heathrow around 1 am and flew to Kigali via Paris.’
A lock of her hair suddenly tumbled out from under the turban, dangling on her chest. He stared at it. Miss Martell drew the robe tightly across her front.
‘You’re a red-head,’ he said. ‘I mean… I don’t suppose… Have you ever been blonde?’
‘Fuck off,’ Miss Martell said, as she slammed the door in his face.
He could have dealt with that a lot better. But he’d gathered, at least, that Miss Martell wasn’t the person who made the 999 call, or the woman Bird had been shouting at.
He turned to see Terry standing in his doorway, bloodshot and red-eyed, but definitely grinning. He invited Rex in and ushered him to the back of the house, into the kitchen, which was full of the sharp, fruity tang of skunk weed. Much of Kovacs’ archive was spread across the table. Terry sat down with a pained grunt, and Rex realised he’d been walking without a stick.
‘Leg feeling better?’
‘I’ve been doing a bit of internet research,’ Terry said, leaning forward and taking a smouldering joint out of the ashtray. ‘This stuff helps. Helps a lot. If I was in California, I’d be getting it on prescription.’
Rex poured a glass of Okocim and passed it toward Terry. Terry shook his head, taking a deep draw.
‘Helps you concentrate, too,’ he said, in the strangulated voice of someone trying not to let precious smoke out of his lungs. ‘I’d never be able to wade through all this stuff normally. Here – look.’
He laid the joint back in the ashtray, and lunged abruptly across the table for one of the files. There was a strange sort of energy about him. Better than the listless, hopeless Terry of the past few days, certainly, but still, odd.
‘See this, right. As well as trying to find out about his own family, Kovacs was looking into what happened in Tottenham just after the Outrage. There were dozens of people down for little rewards for trying to help stop the terrorists…’ Terry continued to rummage, then with sudden force, threw the box down and reached for another. Kovacs’ notes, tiny ink inscriptions on those strange, brown triangles of grease-proof paper, fluttered across the table.
‘A Mrs Mary Ann Cawley got a quid for chucking a potato at the robbers as they scarpered. A Mr Aldred got three pound, three shillings to make up for the loss of his pony…’
‘A Mr Anshel Walther?’
Terry looked up, puzzled. ‘Yeah, he was one of them… How do you know about that?’
‘That’s why Kovacs had that picture of Micah Walther. He wasn’t interested in the boy. Just his family. They couldn’t tell him much about their ancestor, except that he was a bit of a wrong’un.’
Terry nodded. ‘That makes sense. Kovacs was chasing up two people who were mentioned for bravery, but didn’t collect their rewards. He put a note next to Anshel saying ‘not suspicious’.’
‘Meaning the other one was?’
‘George Smith. Gas-fitter by trade. Terry squinted, quoting from the notes: “Who most pluckily and despite his own disability wrestled with the robbers without regard for his own safety.” He was down to receive £25 at a ceremony at Tottenham Council Chamber on 13th March 1909.’
‘Big reward in those days.’
‘Yeah. The Walther bloke was only down for a hundredth of that – five shillings. And here’s a tiny note in the Wood Green Gazette from the day after.’
Rex took a sip of his beer and peered in.
Despite a fine luncheon being laid on gratis courtesy Messrs. Cattini Caterers and various civic dignitaries present, the award could not be made, since Mr George Smith did not appear.
Rex looked up. ‘He never showed up?’
Terry chuckled. ‘Never showed up anywhere, man. The Council just left it at that, but Kovacs did all sorts to try and find out what happened to him. Parish registers. Military records. Court transcripts. Prisons. Couldn’t work out what happened.’
‘Probably not too easy to track down someone called George Smith.’
‘Maybe not. He did find out something, though. In his statement to the police, Smith said he lodged with a Mrs Cutter and her daughter at 7 Scotland Green. But according to the records, that house burned down, with no casualties.’
‘So you mean he gave them an address that didn’t exist?’
Terry slammed the table irritably, making Rex jump. ‘No! I don’t mean that! Just listen to me, man, will you? The house burned down on Saturday 23rd January 1909. See? Same day as the Outrage!’
Rex nodded uncertainly. He couldn’t see what it all meant, or why Terry was so agitated.
‘If that nurse in the hospital got it right, there was a third man, codenamed Vulcan, whose job it was to take the money back to Riga. That explains why no money was found. Right? That’s why Kovacs was so interested in the two guys who never picked up their rewards. If that man – Vulcan – was George Smith – or someone claiming to be George Smith – that would explain why he disappeared without picking up his reward. The hero was a villain!’
‘So what’s the house burning down got to do with it?’
‘I don’t know!’ Terry gave him an almost disgusted look. ‘Maybe he needed to destroy evidence or something.’
‘Isn’t it more likely that George Smith the gas fitter was just George Smith the gas fitter – and the reason he legged it without picking up his reward was because he’d burnt his landlady’s house down? What happened to the landlady and her daughter, anyhow?’
‘I don’t know, man! Jesus. Why are you so fucking determined to pick holes in it?’
‘That’s the proces
s, isn’t it, Terry? You have a theory, and you test it to see what’s wrong?’
Terry didn’t reply. Suddenly drawn into some byway of his own internal debate, he’d started scribbling fiercely on a notepad. Rex watched him uneasily. He didn’t want to shoot Terry’s ideas down, but he didn’t understand why they were so important. None of this frenzied research was helping explain why Kovacs, or the Bettelheims had had to die. Terry seemed to have become obsessed with the thing for its own sake, and perhaps that was all right in the circumstances. But Rex didn’t feel comfortable with his friend’s new, twitchy energy.
Leaving Terry’s house, he tried the Greek lady on the other side – Mrs Christodolou. Eyeing his carrier bag of beers with great suspicion, she said she’d never seen any women going in or out of her neighbours’ house, blonde or otherwise, but then she didn’t look, because she kept herself to herself.
On the way home, Rex wondered if he should perhaps do more of the same himself. Keep his nose out. Let Terry do what he needed to do. He couldn’t help worrying, though. Worrying, and wondering why his drinking companion of five years and the only man who’d ever joined him in a medicinal shot of vodka at breakfast-time, wouldn’t have a beer.
Chapter Seven
The inquest into the Bettelheim murders was held at Wood Green Crown Court, in a stuffy room rendered even less bearable by the number of people in it, and the heating which couldn’t be switched off until the end of April, regardless of the specific weather conditions. Rex found it hard to stay awake, and after he’d given his own statement, he occupied himself with making a note of all the people he recognised. The relations were all there, of course, along with Yitzie Schild and Mordecai Hershkovits, and a number of faces he’d seen either on the streets of Stamford Hill or at the wild celebrations of the tish.
D.S. Brenard was present too, red-eyed and sniffling amidst the police contingent. Next to him was a severe-looking but rather dashing officer who sported assorted medals and epaulette flashes. Rex wondered if this was Commander Bailey. As he scanned the rest of the room, he noted two conspicuous absences. It was understandable that Terry hadn’t been called: the criminal proceedings against him presumably cast doubt on his testimony. But where was Dordoff?
Everyone in the room knew exactly where the long, ritual intonement of statements and questions was heading. The coroner was a tanned, Spartan-looking old man who spent his weekends running up hills, and whose pronouncements always brought a strange note of refinement to the grim catalogue of human demises being categorised at Wood Green. ‘This gentleman’s unfortunate fondness for crack cocaine…’ was a phrase that regularly featured in his verdicts, along with, ‘a rather regrettable use of an automatic firearm.’ From his seat in the separate Press Area, close enough to yank Ellie Mehta by the hair, Rex noticed a number of his fellow journalists sitting up straighter and smiling expectantly as the coroner began his closing notes. No doubt they were hoping for a nice Dickensian phrase to liven up their copy.
None came, today, though. Unlawful killing by poison – and by person or persons unknown. ‘A sad matter,’ was the coroner’s only gloss on the subject. As chairs scraped and people stood, Ellie turned to Rex, opening her mouth to speak. He cut her dead, walked away, and caught Mordecai Hershkovits by the sleeve.
‘Doesn’t change much, does it?’ Hershkovits said, putting on his wide-brimmed hat.
‘It means they can bury the bodies.’
‘And the police can stop investigating,’ Hershkovits said loudly, throwing his voice in the direction of the medalled officer. ‘Not really a coincidence, is it? Suddenly they’re happy to have an inquest now that they need all their officers on the street stopping terrorists.’
‘Would you rather we didn’t bother to stop the terrorists, Mr Hershkovits?’ said the policeman.
‘Have you actually stopped any terrorists since Anwar Hafeez?’ Rex asked. The senior-looking policeman eyed him beadily, before executing a military turn on the heel and stalking out. Rex saw D.S. Brenard shaking his head as if to say, bad move.
‘You had any luck finding the mystery blonde?’ Rex asked Brenard, as they filed out.
‘Bird’s been discharged from hospital but no one can find him,’ Brenard said. ‘He may have told you he saw a blonde bird coming out of Kovacs’ house but if we can’t talk to him, there’s not much we can do.’
‘You could try and test that patch of blood in Kovacs’ cellar.’
‘Someone went to the house and took a sample yesterday,’ Brenard replied coldly. He walked away.
Outside in the sunlight, Rex found himself next to Hershkovits again. ‘I didn’t see Simmy Dordoff here today.’
Hershkovits shrugged. ‘I expect he’s at the kollel still.’
‘What is that – a sort of study place? Is that really what people do all day? Just study?’
Mordecai laughed. ‘We work, Mr Tracey, same as you. Dordoff’s firm is doing up some of the rooms at the study-house.’ He went off, shaking his head and chuckling to himself.
Not wanting to waste a minute, the Bettelheims’ relatives had booked a funeral, to take place at Abney Park Cemetery in a couple of hours’ time. Rex planned to attend, mainly because they desperately needed some photographs for the website, and in the absence of Terry, he was the only one who could get them. As Susan had reminded him, half a million people had lined the streets when the victims of the original Outrage had been interred at Abney. It was the least they could do to cover this more recent crop of burials.
It also gave him an excuse to root out Simmy Dordoff: the kollel was only a short distance up the road. He walked out of the court house, past the Driving Test Centre where only a week ago he’d thought he’d be taking a test, and caught a bus.
On the way, his telephone rang. He didn’t like answering it on buses. Whenever he said, ‘Rex Tracey’, people turned round and stared. He let it ring off. But then it rang again – same number. He answered it.
‘I heard from Latvia,’ said an eager, west country voice. It was Tim from the university, aka GoldVlad. ‘The registry place in Riga got back to me today about a request I made a while back. They told me someone else had been asking about the same person – Rosa Feigenbaum née Brandt.’
‘Kovacs, I assume?’
‘No, I mean – someone else right now.’
Terry. He wished the guy would just relax.
‘Anyhow,’ Tim continued. ‘Rosa’s dates don’t add up. I mean, when she turned up here in the UK, she had a child who was fourteen months older than her marriage certificate…’
‘Meaning she had a child by someone else before Feigenbaum married her.’
‘Exactly. The other thing is… Do you know what a mamzer is?’
‘A what?’
‘A –’
The line went dead. He tried calling back. It was still dead. He jotted down the word mamzer as the bus swung right at Seven Sisters. So Rescha’s ancestor had got pregnant by one man, and then married – or more likely had been married off to – another. Did it mean anything? It was hardly an unusual story. It could have been his own story, in fact, if his mother had married.
His thoughts returned to the woman with the blonde hair. He was encouraged that the police were testing the blood spots. But they’d obviously had no luck finding the mystery 999 caller, or tracking the person he’d seen with Bird outside Kovacs’ house. The only person who knew anything about that woman was Bird. And Bird, a normally ubiquitous sight on the streets of Wood Green, seemed to have disappeared.
The study-house was on Cazenove Road, where a row of smart, stuccoed villas faced brown council towers. On the council side, from a low block that had probably once served as a community centre or a Youth Club, the sound of youthful chanting drifted through open windows.
He peered inside one, and the energy and movement almost made him stagger back. The small room was packed with boys and young men in white shirts and black trousers. Some were absorbed in texts, swaying to the
ir own rhythms as they chanted aloud. Others were reading together, or deep in argument, as a pair of older, white-bearded men wandered round with pointers, listening and occasionally intervening. It was like looking in on a beehive, or a factory.
‘Want to study Talmud?’ asked a voice at his shoulder, startling him. He turned around. Dordoff. He was in white overalls, and covered in plaster dust.
‘How can anyone learn anything in that noise?’ Rex asked.
‘We’ve always had to learn in difficult circumstances,’ Dordoff replied. ‘With pogroms and wars and Holocausts all around us. These places are the engine-houses of the Jewish spirit, Mr Tracey.’
Dordoff motioned to him to follow, and they went round the back of the building, where there was a row of allotments, complete with plastic tunnels and rickety greenhouses. At their far edge a slim, narrow building was being vigorously sanded down by a crew of Hasidim in overalls. But for their skullcaps pinned to their dust-frosted heads with hairclips, they could have been any bunch of workmen, anywhere. They even had the radio on loud – tuned to the BBC World Service.
‘I was expecting to see you at the inquest, Mr Dordoff.’
Dordoff shouted to one of his workmates to turn the radio off. ‘We’re packing up early so we can get ready for the funeral. That’s of rather greater importance to us.’
With the radio off, the sound of the chanting seemed louder. Dordoff led Rex towards the building. They stood for a moment in the doorway, looking out on the flapping, creaking greenhouses and the tilled soil.
‘Studying and gardening,’ Rex said. ‘A strange combination.’
‘For you, maybe. Is there something you want, Mr Tracey?’
‘What’s behind the whole home-grown veg thing? Is it about staying healthy?’
‘Partially. Dukovchiner believe we should look after ourselves, and not depend too much on… well, be self-reliant.’
‘Why? Aren’t you expecting the Messiah to come at any moment?’
Dordoff snorted. ‘In the meantime the world imposes its demands.’