Thread of Evidence

by Frank Smith

  “Oh, didn’t I say, Mr. Underwood? He was assaulted and killed in his room.”

  Underwood’s eyes widened and his jaw went slack as he stared at Paget. He made as if to say something, but couldn’t seem to get the words out. “When?” he croaked.

  Paget regarded him with an air of surprise. “Now, why do you ask that?” he said. “Is the time of particular significance?”

  Underwood shook his head violently. “No! No, it was just that … I mean, I was speaking to him on the phone … Well, as you say, it must have happened after that. That’s all I meant.”

  “I see. Tell me, is there anyone who can confirm where you were last evening, Mr. Underwood?”

  Underwood shook his head. “I live alone,” he said, “but I can assure you I never left the house last night. You’ll just have to take my word for it.”

  “And so I shall,” said Paget agreeably. “At least for now. But someone will call you to arrange a time for your written statement. Thank you for your help.”

  Simone slept late. It was almost three o’clock on Sunday afternoon when she finally opened her eyes. She reached blindly for her cigarettes and lit one, then propped herself up in bed so she wouldn’t go back to sleep and set the place on fire.

  The taste in her mouth was foul. She’d been picked up just after midnight by a very young man who had taken her to a house where a stag party was in progress. She was to be a present, he said, to his friend, who was getting married the following week. “He’s a virgin,” he explained seriously, “so we thought he should have a sort of trial run so he doesn’t make a fool of himself on the big night.”

  Virgin be damned! If that guy was a virgin, then she was a Sister of Charity. She pitied the poor girl he was marrying.

  She listened. Not a sound came from the other room. Vikki must have come in late and still be sleeping. Which meant she must have been working. And a good thing, too! It was about time she started paying her way.

  Simone finished her cigarette. She was tempted to snuggle down again, but if she wasn’t on the street again by seven, Luke would be round to find out why, and she had some washing and ironing to do before then.

  “Vikki?” she called as she got out of bed. “Come on, luv. Your turn to get dinner.” But when she went into the living-room, there was no sign of the girl. The sheets and blankets were still neatly folded at the end of the sofa, exactly as they had been when Simone had gone to bed.

  Simone frowned. The last time she had seen Vikki was when she’d said she was going to Lee’s to get warm, but that had been around eight o’clock last night.

  “Oh, no!” Simone groaned aloud. “Not again!”

  The coppers had been on the prowl again last night. Vikki had mentioned it herself. Sure as hell, she’d been picked up. Simone sighed. The girl wasn’t cut out for this at all. She simply didn’t have it.

  Simone cleaned her teeth while waiting for the bathtub to fill. She wasn’t going to bail the kid out again, she told herself. Vikki could stay there. Perhaps it would teach her to be more careful next time. If there was a next time.

  It was only later, when Simone was preparing to go out again, that she discovered Vikki’s clothes rolled up inside the wardrobe. The same clothes she’d been wearing when she’d gone to Lee’s. So what was she wearing now? Swiftly, Simone went through the clothing in the wardrobe and the drawers. Her black dress was missing; so was her evening bag. What else had the thieving little bitch made off with?

  Simone lit another cigarette and stood there in the middle of the room, trying to make sense of it all. Why, of all things, her black dress? It would look like a sack on Vikki. So why had she taken it? And where had she gone dressed like that?

  CHAPTER 9

  “Mrs. Jones? Mrs. Brenda Jones? My name is Paget.” He held up his card. “Detective Chief Inspector Paget. May I come in and talk to you?”

  “Oh, yes, of course. Sorry about that, but …” She closed the door part-way and fumbled with the chain. “It’s just that my husband’s away—he’s a long-distance lorry driver—and I always keep the chain on when he’s gone.” She moved aside to let him in, then slipped the chain back on before leading him inside.

  The house was small but tastefully furnished. Apart from a newspaper spread out beside a comfortable-looking chair, everything was neat and in its place. The woman gathered up the paper, folded it tidily, and offered Paget a seat. “Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked. “It’s no trouble.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Mrs. Jones,” he said, “but I shan’t be staying long. Just long enough to ask you a few questions.”

  Brenda Jones folded her hands in her lap and settled herself more securely in her chair and eyed him apprehensively.

  She was dressed neatly in a skirt and jumper; her legs were bare and she wore leather sandals on her feet. Probably somewhere in her middle thirties, he decided. A plumpish face beneath a halo of blonde hair made her look younger than she was.

  “What can you tell me about Mr. Bolen?” said Paget. “I must admit I’m puzzled. He had meetings scheduled for Monday afternoon and Tuesday, and yet he booked into the hotel on Saturday, and I’m told he often stayed at the hotel on weekends. Do you have any idea why?”

  Brenda looked down at her hands. “I’m not sure that I can tell you that,” she said. “I mean, they’re very strict about our talking about the guests, even among ourselves.”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about that in this case,” Paget told her. “If we are to find the person who killed Mr. Bolen, we need to know as much about him as possible, good or bad.”

  The woman looked up sharply. “Then you do know …” she began, then stopped.

  “Know what, Mrs. Jones?”

  “You said ‘good or bad.’”

  Paget nodded, wondering exactly what was going through the woman’s mind. “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

  Brenda Jones moved uncomfortably in her chair. “It’s a bit like telling tales out of school,” she said hesitantly, “but then he is dead, isn’t he?”

  Paget nodded encouragingly.

  “Mr. Bolen … well, he’s been what you might call a regular,” she said slowly. “He usually comes on a Saturday. Sometimes he’d stay for just the one night; sometimes he would stay for two. Everyone in the hotel knew him and knew why …” Brenda Jones stumbled to a stop, and Paget thought he knew the reason.

  “He had women in his room,” he said. “Prostitutes. Is that not right?”

  “I didn’t like it, Mr. Paget,” the woman said earnestly. “You must believe me. I don’t like working with the man—not that he’s ever bothered me personally,” she added hastily, “but as long as I didn’t have to have anything to do with his … well, his other business, so to speak”—she looked guiltily at Paget—“I put up with it and said nothing.”

  “Are you telling me that Quint supplied girls to Bolen?”

  “Not just Mr. Bolen. It’s a sort of business on the side, you might say.”

  “Does everyone in the hotel know this?”

  “Some of them do, but not people like the manager, Mr. Landau. He’d go spare if he knew.”

  “I see. Did Quint supply a girl to Bolen last night?”

  Brenda frowned. “I’m not sure,” she said. ‘But something odd happened shortly after I started work at eleven. This girl—her name’s Stella; I don’t know her last name—came down in the lift and demanded to see Mr. Quint. She was upset about something, and when Mr. Quint came out of his office, she started going on at him about sending her up there and being told to—pardon my French, but it’s what she said—“piss off” by Mr. Bolen. Mr. Quint got her into his office straightaway, and they went at it for quite a while before Stella came out again.”

  “Was she still upset?”

  “I think she was, but not as much as when she went in. I can’t be sure, but I think Mr. Quint may have given her some money.”

  “Did you see him give her money?”r />
  “No, but she was putting money into her bag as she came out of the office, so I assumed Mr. Quint had given it to her.”

  “I see. Can you describe this girl, Stella?”

  “Oh, yes. She’s a regular at the hotel. She’s a big girl, quite tall, dark hair, plumpish face, and she wears a lot of red. I shouldn’t think she’d be hard to find. She’s been working the hotel for as long as I’ve been there.”

  “Always with Bolen?”

  “Oh, no. She goes with others as well.”

  “So you’ve seen others going up to Mr. Bolen’s room as well?”

  Brenda Jones nodded.

  “Just one more question, Mrs. Jones, and I’ll be on my way. You say that Stella was a big girl. In your experience, did Mr. Bolen prefer smaller girls? Is that, perhaps, why he rejected Stella that night?”

  “Oh, no, Mr. Paget. I don’t know why Mr. Bolen turned Stella away last night, but it wouldn’t be because of that. He liked the big ones. All the girls who went up to his room, at least while I’ve been working there, were a good size.”

  Before calling it a day, Paget returned to Charter Lane, where he, Tregalles and Len Ormside, who had come in to begin the task of setting up an Incident Room, sat down to pool their information.

  “If this girl, Stella, is a regular at the hotel, she’s probably in our records already,” Ormside observed. “Even if she isn’t, chances are that some of our people will recognize the name and description. I’ll get on it first thing in the morning. Or we could ask Quint. He must know where to find her.”

  Paget shook his head. “For one thing, I don’t want to jeopardize Mrs. Jones’s position if I can help it, and for another, if we alert Quint, he may stonewall us long enough to have Stella do a runner. But I’m curious about this other girl as well. Obviously, she’s not one of Quint’s regulars or he would never have mentioned her to me. And according to Brenda Jones, she wasn’t Bolen’s type. But whoever she is, I want her found.”

  Tregalles nodded. “I can have another go at the hotel staff,” he said, “but so far they’re all sticking together and deny any knowledge of Bolen or anyone else having girls in their rooms. One of the maids, a part-timer who works weekends, did mention a man who came to see Bolen fairly regularly, but she said that was usually on Sunday mornings. She didn’t know his name, but she described him as middle-aged, clean-shaven, with sandy hair, but not much of it, and quite fat. Oh, yes, and he wore spectacles.”

  Paget was suddenly alert. “Douglas Underwood,” he said, “and when I spoke to him this morning, he did his damnedest to distance himself from Bolen. I’d better have another chat with him. Anything else?”

  “Reservations are required in the Elizabethan Room,” Tregalles said, “so I have the names and telephone numbers of everyone who was there last night, and we’ll be talking to them tomorrow.”

  Paget stifled a yawn. “Any news on when the post-mortem will be?”

  “Coroner’s office rang to say it’s been delayed until tomorrow,” said Ormside. “No one available.”

  Which meant, thought Paget, that the chances of getting an accurate time of death were diminishing by the hour. “Has anyone inquired about Starkie?” he asked. He’d meant to phone the hospital himself, but it had slipped his mind till now.

  “I spoke to Charlie this afternoon, and he tells me they’ll be operating tomorrow morning,” Tregalles said. “He was talking to Reg’s wife, and she told him the doctors are quite optimistic about his chances.”

  “Thank God for that,” said Paget. He hoped the doctors were right. After seeing the pathologist, grey-faced and gasping for air as he slumped to the floor that morning, he had wondered whether Starkie would make it at all. Obviously he had, and they must think he had a decent chance if they weren’t planning to operate until tomorrow.

  He rose to his feet. “Right,” he said, “then I suggest we all get a good night’s sleep, because tomorrow is going to be a very busy day.”

  Something was plucking at her clothes, tearing at her skin. She fell against a hard surface; she couldn’t breathe. She tried to get up but she was being trampled by a herd of animals she couldn’t see. Hooves thudded into her chest, her face …

  A blurred image appeared in front of her. A pair of eyes, a face … It was gone. She felt something pulling on her hair. It was being pulled out by the roots!

  It was dark. Pitch-black.

  “Feeling a bit better, then?”

  Vikki opened her eyes and let out a long sigh of relief as she realized she’d been dreaming. Or was it a dream? That face … There was something about that face.

  Joanna was there, holding her hand. “You’re looking better,” she said. “That sleep did you good. Feel like something to eat?”

  Vikki nodded. She was hungry. In fact, she was famished. “What time is it?” she asked, and winced. Her whole face felt stiff and sore, and her chest felt as if it had been hammered by … what? She tried to capture the image from her dream, but the harder she tried, the faster it seemed to fade.

  “Five o’clock.”

  “Five … ?”

  Joanna smiled. “Sunday afternoon. You’ve been asleep for almost eight hours. Best thing for you, considering the condition you were in. Think you can manage a wash by yourself, or would you like Bunny to help you while I make something to eat? It will have to be a sponge bath, I’m afraid. Bunny and I work at the pub, so they let us use the shower there, but I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to go over there in your present condition.”

  Vikki eased herself off the bunk and stood up. “I’ll be all right,” she assured Joanna. “And thank you ever so much. I don’t know what I’d have done if you …” She blinked hard, fighting back tears. “I’ll pay you back, I promise.”

  “Nonsense! Now, let’s see about that bath, and then we’ll look for something that fits you better than that awful dress you were wearing.”

  CHAPTER 10

  MONDAY, 25 SEPTEMBER

  Monday morning was a madhouse in the Incident Room. Detectives, clerks, technicians and their helpers all stumbling over each other as equipment was set up and put in place, while those who had been called out on Sunday brought the regular shift up to speed. Superintendent Alcott arrived in time for the morning briefing, then spent another fifteen minutes asking questions as he prepared his own report for Chief Superintendent Brock.

  The Force press officer came looking for a statement he could give to the media, and was told what he could say—which wasn’t very much—but more importantly, what he could not say. Even the cause of death would be withheld until it could be confirmed by the post-mortem results later in the day. “In other words, the usual blah, blah, blah,” he sighed unhappily as he put his pen away and departed from the room.

  Paget looked at the time. Nine-fifteen, and things were settling down. Len Ormside had stayed late last night, entering on whiteboards the salient features of the crime and results of the investigation so far. He had even managed to lay out tentative assignments for the day. Which was why, despite the appearance of mass confusion, things had gone as smoothly as they had.

  “Well done, Len,” he told the sergeant as he put on his coat. “If you need to contact me, I’ll be in Keith Lambert’s office. I have an appointment with him at ten.”

  Keith Lambert was a stocky, broad-shouldered man of about fifty. He had short, dark, wiry hair, and deep-set eyes beneath a tangle of bushy eyebrows. He came out from behind an old-fashioned wooden desk strewn with folders as Paget was ushered into his office by Lambert’s secretary.

  “Chief Inspector Paget,” he said as he thrust out a hand. His grip was firm and brief. “Sorry to hear about Bolen. Not that we ever got on, but no one deserves to die like that. Please, have a seat.” He moved back to his own chair behind the desk. “Do you prefer coffee or tea?”

  “Tea, thank you,” said Paget. “No milk or sugar.”

  “Right. Same for me, please, Myrtle,” he told the woman who ha
d ushered Paget in.

  Lambert toyed with a letter-opener. “Paget …” he said ruminatively. “I used to know a Paget once. He was my dentist. Died suddenly, poor chap, three or four years ago. Good man.”

  “He was my father.”

  Lambert sat forward. “Was he, now? If memory serves, he used to live in Ashton Prior in a house my father built.”

  “Absolutely right,” said Paget. “I live there now.”

  The door opened, and Myrtle returned with a tray containing biscuits, cups and saucers, matching plates, and a teapot. Not everyday china, Paget noted as the woman poured the tea and silently withdrew.

  Paget sipped his tea, then set his cup carefully in its saucer. “I know you must be a busy man, Mr. Lambert,” he said, “so I’ll come straight to the point. I’ve been given to understand that there has been some sort of feud going on between you and the Bolens for a good many years. Something beyond the normal business rivalry. What was it about?”

  Keith Lambert sipped his tea thoughtfully. “Are you suggesting there is a connection between Jim Bolen’s death and this ‘feud,’ as you call it?”

  “Quite frankly, I don’t know,” Paget told him. “But if what I’ve been told is correct, it does seem that your visit to the Bolen house triggered a series of events that ended with Bolen’s death. Not that the two are necessarily connected,” he added carefully, “but I’m sure you will appreciate that we do have to explore every possibility.”

  Lambert nodded. “I can see that,” he conceded. He took another sip from the cup, then set it down on the saucer and leaned forward, arms folded on the desk before him.

  “First of all, it was not a feud in the true sense of the word. It was an obsession on the part of Jim Bolen, and I can tell you almost to the minute when it started. It was in 1964, the fourteenth of July, to be exact, about ten o’clock in the morning. We were working on the top floor of what was then the new town hall. I was just sixteen, and working as a labourer on the job during the summer holidays, and my uncle, Jack Bolen, was working as a carpenter. He was a joiner by trade and had worked with his father in his cabinet-making shop before coming to work for my father as a—”