They were not very articulate and Joan Eames did not talk to them much although she tried to follow John Coffin’s instructions and observe them sharply. She stayed with them only a short time, thinking to herself that it was now only evening and she had fulfilled her task well within the time allowed her. Tomorrow probably she could go back to her routine baby-minding jobs.
She could see they were glad when she rose to go. They all got up too, father, mother, son and three daughters and the sole representative of an earlier generation, Gran.
Gran only spoke as Joan was leaving. ‘Katherine’s not one of us,’ was all she said. Then suddenly added: ‘She’s more of a Holden, that’s my husband’s side. Yes, Katherine’s a Holden.’
‘Could I see a photograph of Katherine, please?’ Joan asked. One of the things that embarrassed her in the interview with the Gables was the way they hurried to do what she asked, open the door, pull out a chair, answer a question and bring a photograph. It made her want to say please and thank you hard all the time.
‘Thank you.’ She looked at the photograph. It was a school group, Katherine with some other friends, one child had an arm round her waist and another smiled at her, she must have been a popular girl. Joan saw at once why Katherine wasn’t one with the rest of the family. She was a tall thin wiry child with a keen gaze. Physically she was utterly different. Mentally, too, probably. She handed the photograph back. ‘Thank you. I see what you mean.’
She went back to Coffin who made time for her out of a morass of other duties and who listened to her while looking out of the window. But he listened carefully and took it all in.
‘Good girl. You seem to have understood what I wanted.’
‘I think I did.’ He didn’t work at his marriage any more was the phrase someone had used, but he didn’t attract her on this account, the way he would have done some girls she knew.
‘Oh you did. You got out what I really wanted: that the missing girls could all have been looking for affection.’
‘Yes,’ said Joan Eames. ‘Love from a stranger.’
‘And you got the other thing too.’
‘The other thing?’
‘Yes.’ He grinned at her. ‘The fact that they all had friends.’
‘I began to see the point of that.’
‘Of course you did. And the other thing: the adult figure who must have known them all. There’s more than one, of course, but there’s one who begins to stand out. And now you can go out and see the other girl.’
‘The other girl?’
‘The one who came back. Kim Simpson of Riga Street. Number 3 Riga Street, I believe. Actually it’s the first house. Number 1 is a shop. She went off on Boxing Day, but she came back.’
‘So she isn’t really one of ours?’
‘I’m not so sure. I think she’s one of the dark number. The crimes we never get to hear about until too late.’
‘Only she wasn’t really a crime.’
‘We don’t know, do we?’ said Coffin. ‘Go and have a word with her. Get more out of her than anyone else has. See what she has to say.’
It was getting late in the day to see what Kim Simpson had to say, but Joan Eames thought it might be worth trying. Children didn’t go to bed so early round here.
As soon as she saw Kim (who characteristically opened the door herself) she recognized her for what she was, one of those sharp little London sparrows. She was so sharp that you knew she would end up cutting herself; you also knew that she would never see this coming. She trusted in her own shrewdness to the death. She would die with her eyes open, not believing in what she saw. Joan Eames thought she was lucky to have got home in one piece.
‘Hello.’ She met Joan’s eye with self assurance. ‘Heard you were going around. Wondered if you’d be in to see me.’ She let Joan walk into the house. ‘Well, you didn’t think you were a secret, did you?’
She led the way into the small sitting-room. ‘Sit down and make yourself at home. Mum’s out and Dad’s in the kitchen.’
‘Better call him in.’
‘I won’t eat you. And I don’t think you’ll eat me.’
‘He has to be here while I talk to you.’
‘Yeah. I know what you coppers are like. Always watching each other. If you and I have a little talk alone then they might start saying things about you.’ She went to the door and called. ‘Dad! here, Dad.’ She came back. ‘He comes if you call him.’
‘Yes. I can hear.’
‘I wouldn’t. Someone call me like that and I’d just sit. That’s me.’ She didn’t hate herself.
‘I suppose he gets used to walking,’ said Kim, sitting down and crossing her ankles.
Contradicting the build-up which his daughter, whether unconsciously or not, had given him as a bullied man, Robert Simpson was trim and bright-eyed, very like the girl, and with a mind of his own. Joan Eames recognized him as a local postman.
‘Take no notice of her, miss,’ he said. ‘We didn’t beat her enough when she was young. But she’s a good girl.’ And he looked at her with affection and she looked the same way back.
‘I’d like to ask her a few questions about what happened on Boxing Day.’
‘But there was nothing in that. She was a naughty girl and went off to the fair and came home late, but that was all. We know it.’
‘But you reported her missing to the police.’
‘That was before she came back. All right, we got anxious, but she came home.’
‘Where did you go, Kim?’ said Joan softly.
‘To the fairground. You know, the one down at the Blue.’ The Blue was what everyone locally called the stretch of wide street opposite the Blue Anchor public house. Weekdays it held stalls and street market. There was also this small fairground owned by Mr Di Finzio.
‘And as well as that?’
‘Nowhere else. I stayed there. I went on things. I lost my sense of time.’ She was glib.
‘Did you do anything else?’ Joan was digging around.
‘No.’ She was prompt.
‘Not anything? Not even get yourself a drink? They sell orange juice and such, don’t they?’
‘I had an ice-cream.’ She seemed slow about that one.
‘Just one?’
‘I had more than one.’
‘How long were you gone?’
Kim shrugged.
Joan Eames looked at Mr Simpson, sitting there taking his ease. Like father like daughter. ‘How long was she gone? When did you report her missing?’
‘She left the house around three. We ate late that day. We got anxious any time after six. It was a cold wet night and she ought to have been in. We reported her missing at eight. She came in around ten. Naughty girl, eh?’ He looked at her fondly.
‘It seems a long time to have been doing not very much,’ said Joan exasperated.
Kim’s eyes, bright, alert, amused, rested on her.
She’s like a little tiger, thought Joan, roaming through the London forest, sure it can eat before it gets eaten. But even little tigers meet bigger tigers.
‘All right,’ she said, rising. ‘You were in your ice-cream heaven and you didn’t notice anything.’
Kim blinked.
Chapter Thirteen
The ice-cream van did its daily tour through the streets of the district on the next day. Cyrus was a good driver and salesman, if a bored one. The job, he knew, was beneath him, but it gave him time for thought. Cyrus always had problems to think about, if not of one sort, then another. Driving around and selling ice-cream gave him a chance to think about them. His main problem at the moment concerned the Club for UFO watchers. He had led a little revolution to destroy John Plowman’s power in it, only to find that John had lost interest and was moving out himself. The frivolity of John’s attitude infuriated him.
‘He’s not a serious character,’ he said aloud to the steering wheel of his van. This steering wheel took a good deal of Cy’s conversation and he was even beginning to see it as a s
ort of face that could hear and comprehend without answering back. This picture was subliminal, of course. Cy wasn’t openly mad, but it was there under the skin of his mind.
He saw a group of children on their way to school standing at the street corner, but he didn’t slow down near them or play his musical chime. He knew they were not going to buy. Cy was not a child lover but he had learnt a good deal about children.
It was almost two in the afternoon and the van was well on schedule. From now until school was out again was a slack time. Cy rather enjoyed his dreamy tours through the streets. Today was hot and sticky, but he felt cool enough.
‘Cool cold Cyrus,’ he murmured reflectively. ‘In the States they’d probably be training me to drive a space vehicle. With my nerve I’m wasted here. I don’t know why I don’t emigrate.’ To emigrate was another dream of Cy’s. He didn’t mind where he went. Somewhere there was a planet waiting for him.
The afternoon passed pleasantly. School came out, he sold some ice-cream. The traffic on the roads thickened as the factories and offices started to close. As it was a hot day he sold a few water-ice lollipops to adults for a change. It always gave him a feeling of triumph to sell ice-cream to a grown-up. The reason for this was buried deep inside him, but it was probably connected with the idea that he’d made them back down in front of him. Made them show appeasement signals, as his friend Tony Young would have said. Aggression and appeasement were nicely mingled in Cyrus. He would have made an awkward emigrant. Except on an empty planet. But of course that was what he was really looking for.
He continued his course, monotonous to some, but not to him. Saxe-Coburg Street together with Riga Street and Archangel Street were like lines on a children’s game. He went up one and down the other. Down Riga Street, turn left into Saxe-Coburg Street, right turn and up Riga Street. Through Riga Street, then a more complex set of roads, including Harper Road where Tony Young lived and back to where you started. There were short cuts between the roads for children and cats.
He was almost finished for the day now. He drove on as steadily as possible, stopping where he must, selling as demands met him. He was a little jumpy. No one’s nerves were quite steady in this district just now.
One of his friends, a man who kept a shop, hailed him and asked for a tub of chocolate ice-cream. Cyrus didn’t really like one of his friends to stop him and order. The truth was he felt his job was beneath him and he didn’t care for them to see him at it.
‘We’re out of chocolate,’ he said, although there was an unopened container of it in the back of the freezer that he had placed there himself. He was driving around in his candy coloured van well supplied with chocolate ice-cream but he felt like not selling it.
‘Strawberry, then.’
‘Yes, we have strawberry,’ he admitted reluctantly.
‘I don’t mind. I don’t like ice-cream. But my wife’s away and I have to eat something.’
‘You could drink some milk.’
Cy’s friend did not answer this point, but it confirmed his idea that Cy would never make a salesman. At any rate, not of ice-cream.
‘Your wife on holiday?’
‘No. No holiday. She just took the children away. You can’t blame her.’
‘No.’ Cyrus considered. His own wife had not gone and wouldn’t be going.
‘She’s worried for the children. She’s been worked up for months. But when the last disappearance happened, she really got worried.’
‘You’re dropping the ice-cream down your shirt.’
‘Well, it’s a bad business. You got any theories?’
‘Yes. One theory,’ said Cyrus.
‘What’s that?’
‘That we won’t ever find out who did it.’
He started up the van and drove off, leaving his friend standing on the kerb with his ice-cream in his hand somehow feeling naked.
‘Cyrus,’ he called out angrily, ‘next time you ask me if you can leave your van in my yard, I’ll say go and buy some ice-cream.’
Cyrus drove to the depot where he was due to check in the van. He was a little early, but on such a day it seemed more sensible to be early than late. In any case, he knew how to time it so that his earliness slid in unnoticed.
He was whistling melodiously. He enjoyed music.
As he passed the corner of Palliser Road where the old stables stood he saw an ambulance draw up. Then another. He drove very, very slowly, watching. This was the stable where Tom Butt’s body had been found.
Cyrus stopped whistling, and hurried on. He thought it might be a night to be home.
Chapter Fourteen
‘Yes, you did well with Kim Simpson,’ said Coffin, offering a compliment to Joan Eames that same evening. ‘What did you make of her?’
‘She’s a bloody little liar,’ said Joan dispassionately.
‘Yes. That’s what everyone else said. Any idea why she’s lying?’
‘I don’t know. She might just be stupid.’
‘She would have to have a certain kind of reason for not saying anything. I don’t think in the case of Kim Simpson we need use the word loyalty.’
‘It’ll be a boy. Something male,’ said Joan Eames.
‘A local boy, do you think?’
‘Yes. Probably. Because she’d have to get to know him. And he’d have to be a liar too.’
Coffin nodded. ‘I agree.’
‘Because he’s kept it all quiet,’ she said.
‘A local boy who’s a liar,’ said Coffin.
‘And she’s only twelve. So he has to be a little boy. Or one with junior tastes.’
‘A local boy who tells lies and has a taste for little girls. Any suggestions?’
Joan Eames looked at him brightly but did not say anything.
‘We have candidates,’ said Coffin. ‘We have candidates.’
He let Joan Eames go and she met Sergeant Parr on her way out. She still liked the look of him. After her recent work she liked the look of him better than ever. He seemed so clean and normal. Also she strongly suspected she was a little brighter and cleverer than he was, and that too seemed highly desirable.
However, he didn’t seem to have an eye for her. He walked right past her with a friendly smile. She couldn’t pretend that everything started to spin for him when he saw her.
He did indeed smile at her because he thought she was a nice girl and a hard worker. Moreover, she seemed to have the ear of his boss, Coffin, at the moment. She was not, however, all that alluring and on no account was he going to marry a policewoman.
He was in a hurry, as Joan Eames saw. Something was up, but no one so far had told her what.
‘Boss there?’ he said, nodding at the door.
‘I’ve just left him. What’s doing?’
‘We found something. And this is definitely it.’
‘Does he know?’ She nodded towards the door.
‘Oh yeah, he knows.’
‘He didn’t say anything.’
Parr shrugged. ‘You know him.’
‘I’m beginning to.’ She continued on her way out.
Coffin looked up as Parr came into his room. ‘Well?’
‘Two bodies, sir. So far.’
‘Think there’ll be more?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘The lot?’
Parr nodded.
‘You don’t look too well.’
‘It’s not nice, sir.’
‘No.’ Coffin considered. ‘Tell Dove I’ll be round. You go back. Keep everyone else out.’
‘There’s a crowd outside already.’
‘Keep everyone out. I’ll be coming.’
After Parr had gone, Coffin got one of the tapes he had taken from Tony Young and played it. He didn’t listen to all of it, but selected certain passages which he had marked. He felt very sad and very puzzled as he listened. This was Tony Young’s tape and a lot had to be explained away about it.
Since the discovery of Tom Butt’s body the police team had been
quietly and methodically going over the stables inch by inch. Progress had been slow. In fact at first it hadn’t looked like progress at all, but an endless monotonous turning over of rubbish to no real purpose. Two detective constables were specially assigned to the job.
They had got through the front stables and were working on the two that lay at the back of the cobbled yard when the character of their work changed.
They were silent about it at first, working away without a word. It seemed too important what they might be now approaching, to make a shout about it.
Even when one of them spoke it was in a very quiet voice. ‘Does it look the way to you it does to me?’
‘I think so.’
‘This is really it, isn’t it?’
Later on, in making his first report, the detective constable repeated this phrase and it got picked up by Sergeant Parr and passed on as the way to put it. This was really it.
Just then, though, they worked on for a few more minutes, moving very slowly, sorting through the piles of lumber and rubbish in front of them.
‘I knew as soon as I saw that girl’s shoe we were coming to something,’ said one of them suddenly. ‘And then the way the things are stacked on the floor here. Artificial. Contrived.’
‘It had a smell,’ said the other bluntly.
His companion made a sick noise.
‘Steady. Help me shift this packing case.’
‘Look at that.’ In this part of the stables the floor was old, old brick. But someone had disturbed the neat herring-bone pattern. ‘A rotten job. Not put back carefully.’
‘Shall we dig?’
For answer, the senior man of the two prised up a loose brick and moved the soil underneath with the tip of his shoe. It was loose. He crouched down and put his face towards the soil. Then he stood up. ‘Yes, that’s the smell. Wait here. I’m going to telephone.’
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