Shadow Play

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘Maurice, it’s well past lunchtime,’ Swilley objected, looking pointedly at her watch.

  ‘That’s why I’m hungry,’ said McLaren.

  ‘You’re always hungry. It’s pathological,’ Swilley said. ‘Obsessive eating’s a displacement activity for sex.’

  ‘Well, you won’t have sex with us, so bring us a pasty,’ McLaren said logically.

  Swilley snorted and whirled out.

  The shop was just like any other in the area: tiny and dimly lit, with the counter at the far end. The newspapers were stacked at floor level, and above them were racks of sweets on one side, crisps and snacks on the other, with a passage one-customer wide down the middle. Cigarettes were in a locked cupboard behind the counter, and the Cerberus in front of them was a chubby-faced Pakistani, who folded his arms defensively across his chest and narrowed his eyes at the sight of Swilley. How did they know? she wondered. She was rather offended – she went to some lengths not to look like a copper. They might as well have ‘Metropolitan Police’ tattooed across their foreheads and be done with it, she thought with an inward sigh.

  He relaxed slightly as she explained her business and produced the photograph. She was fully expecting a blank stare and a what-did-you-expect denial, but A or B Patel took one look and said, ‘Oh, yes, we know him. He’s one of our regulars.’

  Swilley’s spirits lifted. ‘Do you know his name?’

  He rolled his eyes upward, contemplating the ceiling for inspiration. ‘Wait one moment. I will think of it.’

  Contemplation went on too long. This wasn’t the Sistine Chapel. Swilley prodded him, ‘How often does he come in?’

  He lowered his gaze with apparent relief. ‘Oh, many times. He comes in for cigarettes. Chocolate bars. Also a lottery ticket every Wednesday and Saturday.’

  ‘Just one?’

  ‘Always the same numbers,’ he explained. ‘He said he was afraid to change them in case that was the week they won. Many, many people say the same. He has never won. Nobody ever does. But they go on buying a ticket every week. It is very strange.’

  ‘And what’s his name?’ Swilley said, hoping to trick it out of him.

  He just looked bothered. ‘Yes, yes, I will think of it in a minute. It’s Mr something.’

  No kidding, Swilley thought.

  ‘Also we deliver his newspaper,’ he went on. ‘He lives just across the road, in Ruskin House.’

  Swilley endured a brief struggle between excitement and impatience, both of which required her to scream. Then she said patiently, ‘Perhaps you could look him up in your books.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said brightly. ‘What a good idea.’ He got down a large, battered-looking loose-leaf folder from the shelf behind him, and began laboriously thumbing through, with plenty of licking between pages. ‘I am remembering now, his name I think is Mr King. I am almost certain is it Mr King.’ And at last, ‘Yes, here it is. Mr King. Flat 16, Ruskin House. One Guardian newspaper every day.’ He looked up, pleased with himself, for her thanks.

  ‘Have you got a phone number?’

  ‘We don’t have phone numbers. It is not necessary.’

  ‘Is he married, do you know?’

  ‘I do not know.’ His face clouded. ‘Has something happened to him?’

  Swilley avoided that one. ‘Thanks for your help, Mr Patel,’ she said.

  ‘I am Mr Wassan,’ he told her gravely. ‘Mr Patel is my uncle.’

  ‘Well, thanks anyway,’ she said, heading for the door.

  ‘If something has happened to him, do you think I should cancel his order?’ the voice followed her, rather wistfully.

  Ruskin House was a handsome 1930s art-deco block in white stucco. It was five storeys high, and the corner flats on each floor had those curved windows so beloved of the period, which for some reason made the building look like an ocean liner. Number 16 was on the second floor. All the flats had three-panelled wooden doors, with a spy hole and a bell push. She pressed the bell, and knocked long and loud for good measure, but there was no answer.

  A slight sound made her turn her head, to see the door of the next flat open a crack. An eye was peering through at little-old-lady level. As Swilley approached, the door was snapped shut. She knocked on it, more temperately, and said, in her most conciliatory voice, ‘It’s the police, ma’am. Can I have a word?’

  ‘Go away!’ was the muffled cry from inside, but from close by the door. Swilley concluded there was curiosity there, as well as apprehension.

  ‘I’d just like to talk to you about your neighbour. Look, I’m holding up my warrant card so you can see it. I am a plain-clothes police officer. Would you just open the door, ma’am?’

  There was some heavy, contemplative breathing behind the door, then a fumbling rattle as the chain was applied, and the door opened to its limit, revealing a shrivelled face surmounted by a puff-ball of spun white hair, like a dandelion clock. Swilley was tall, and the head appeared at around waist-level for her. She crouched and offered the warrant card again, smiling as unthreateningly as she knew how.

  The suspicious eyes travelled up from the warrant card to Swilley’s face. ‘You don’t look like a police officer,’ the old lady objected.

  ‘Thank you, ma’am. I take that as a compliment, Mrs …?’

  ‘Greenwood.’

  ‘I’m Detective Constable Swilley. It’s about your next-door neighbour—’

  ‘Has something happened to Mr Kimmelman?’ Mrs Greenwood interrupted.

  ‘Kimmelman?’

  She jerked her head. ‘Next door. Number sixteen. Leon Kimmelman is his name. Has something happened, you should come round asking about him? Such a nice man – always so polite. He holds the lift if he sees me coming – I don’t walk so fast any more. I have one of those frames. A mixed blessing! It slows me down, but he never gets impatient. “Good morning, Mrs Greenwood,” he says, so pleasant, all the time in the world, and he holds the door open for me. A real mensch. Not like some people.’

  ‘Is he married?’ Swilley asked.

  A toss of the head. ‘That well I don’t know him. He’s just a neighbour.’

  ‘I mean,’ Swilley hastened to repair, ‘does he live there alone? I was knocking but there was no reply.’

  ‘Alone, as far as I know,’ Mrs Greenwood allowed, placated. ‘And usually, a quiet neighbour, you would never know he was there, no parties or loud music.’

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘I don’t remember. Was it Saturday? I looked out and he was just letting himself in. Friday or Saturday, I don’t remember. But Sunday night, I could hear him moving around, very late, banging doors and such, not like him. And now the police here, asking questions! Such goings-on we don’t like in this house. A quiet, respectable house it has always been.’

  ‘Mrs Greenwood, would you just take a look at this photograph, so I can be sure we’re talking about the same person. Is this your neighbour Mr Kimmelman?’

  A monkey-paw came through the gap and snaffled the photograph back through. The face disappeared for a moment, and then the photo was returned and the face was at the gap again, concerned and anxious. ‘That’s him,’ she said. ‘Leon Kimmelman. In that photo he doesn’t look so well. Has something happened to him?’

  ‘I’m afraid he’s dead, Mrs Greenwood,’ Swilley said as gently as she could. She was afraid the old bird might faint away, still on the wrong side of the door chain to be helped.

  But she only closed her eyes and shook her head and said something under her breath that sounded like a prayer, or an imprecation. Then she opened them sharply and said, ‘Was that what it was, on Sunday night, the noise?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ Swilley admitted. ‘What sort of noise was it?’

  She contemplated her memory. ‘Bumping against the wall. Things dropped on the floor. Furniture being moved. I thought maybe he was packing to move out.’

  So that might be where he was whacked, Swilley thought. ‘Voices?’ she asked.

&nbs
p; ‘I heard no voices. But these flats are well-built. You don’t hear quiet noises. I had to put my ear to the wall to hear, after the bumps woke me up.’ She scrutinised Swilley’s face. ‘Was he dying? Was that what I heard? I don’t like to think he was dying in there all alone. I could have rung for an ambulance if I’d known. What happened to him?’

  Swilley ignored the question and put one of her own. ‘What time was it, do you remember?’

  ‘Late,’ said Mrs Greenwood. ‘I couldn’t say exactly. Maybe after midnight. I was in bed. I’d been reading. I don’t sleep so good any more. But I’d fallen asleep, and then the bump against the wall woke me up, right by my bed. Then I got up and put my ear to the wall.’

  ‘Did it sound like a fight?’

  ‘A fight? No! Who was fighting? Is that what you think? Like someone packing to leave, is what it sounded like to me. And I haven’t heard him go out or come in since, not yesterday or this morning.’ Her worried old eyes stared up as she thought about it. Sooner or later a penny would drop. Swilley sought to distract her.

  ‘Do you have a spare key to his flat?’ she asked.

  ‘I do not,’ Mrs Greenwood said, slightly offended. ‘I’m a respectable widow. A key to a single gentleman’s flat I would not have.’ Swilley began to excuse herself, but Mrs Greenwood said, ‘The managing agents have spare keys in case of emergency. Not to my flat,’ she added, with a cunning look. ‘Thirty-five years I’ve lived here, when we first came they were very nice people, a Mr Bergman took care of the house personally. Him, I didn’t mind having a key. But nowadays, they come and go, flighty young things, you don’t know who works there. I don’t want any Tom, Dick and Harry having my key. So I changed the lock.’ She gave a triumphant smile.

  ‘What if there’s an emergency?’ Swilley couldn’t help asking.

  ‘What will be, will be,’ said Mrs Greenwood, and snapped the door shut.

  Now that’s good theatre, Swilley thought.

  Cameron rang with the result of the autopsy. ‘Death was certainly due to the blow. It was very violent – fractured three vertebrae, shattering one of them. There’s no head trauma, and the brain shows no sign of concussion, which suggests he must have crumpled, rather than being knocked over, so death was probably instantaneous. There’s no pathological evidence of poisoning or sedation, though of course I will send off tox screens to be sure, but you know how long that takes.’

  ‘I’m happy to take your word that he wasn’t drugged.’

  ‘Kind of you. His last meal had passed out of his stomach, but there was alcohol in there. Whisky – but not enough for him to have been drunk at the time of death.’

  ‘So he was having a drink with someone, and annoyed them enough for them to wallop him, leaving them with an embarrassing body to get rid of,’ Slider mused.

  ‘If you say so. You’re the detective. I’m just a lowly scientist.’

  ‘Lowly!’ Slider scoffed.

  ‘Also those knuckles showed signs of old fractures, there was a long-healed fracture to one of the ribs, and a dent in the forehead, consistent with a blow. And the nose had been fractured, again a long time ago. Our friend was something of a pugilist in his former life, it seems.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Slider. ‘I’m not sure any of that helps.’

  ‘Have you found out who he is yet?’

  ‘Unlike you, I had nothing to work with.’

  ‘You need a visit from our old friend, Neil Desperandum,’ Cameron advised.

  The excitement of Swilley’s return brought Slider out of his room. The relief of having a name was profound. A body without a name was as unsettling to a policeman as a raspberry pip stuck between the teeth.

  Two names.

  ‘I wonder why he gave a different one to the paper shop,’ said Gascoyne, adding the new information to the whiteboard. He had taken over the role of office manager for major investigations, now Colin Hollis was dead. No one else ever wanted to do it, and though it might have been dumped on him, as the most recent recruit to the CID, he actually didn’t mind doing it, having an orderly mind and endless patience.

  ‘Probably couldn’t be bothered spelling Kimmelman to the Patels,’ Swilley said. ‘Everyone can manage “King”.’

  ‘She said the noises next door were late at night?’ Slider queried.

  ‘She said after midnight, probably. Why?’

  ‘Because if it was that late, it probably wasn’t the murder she heard. Doc Cameron gave twelve hours plus for the time of death. It’s never exact, but he’s not likely to have been that far out.’

  ‘The murder could have been earlier, and the murderer was still there,’ Gascoyne suggested.

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Frozen in panic, maybe.’

  ‘For several hours?’ Hart said derisively. ‘Nah, if it was panic, he’d have legged it.’

  ‘I think it’s more likely the murderer came to the flat after dumping the body,’ said Atherton.

  ‘How would he get in?’ asked Fathom, a meaty lad, getting meatier since he joined the firm under McLaren’s pie-and-pasty regime. He looked at Swilley. ‘You said there was no sign of a break-in.’

  ‘He’d have the keys, dumbo,’ said Swilley. ‘He went through deceased’s pockets, remember?’

  ‘Mightn’t have been the murderer,’ Fathom said, driven to defence. He didn’t like being out-thought by a female. ‘Could’ve been anyone with a key.’

  ‘Anyone with a key who knew Kimmelman was dead,’ said Swilley.

  ‘Well, one way or another, we’ll have to go and have a look,’ said Slider.

  ‘Let’s hope all the evidence hasn’t been removed,’ said Atherton.

  ‘Let’s hope Kimmelman didn’t change his lock, like Mrs Greenwood,’ said Swilley.

  The managing agents, Wiley’s, provided a key, along with the information that they had him down as Leon Kimmelman, rather than King.

  ‘So perhaps that was his real name,’ said Slider.

  ‘Perhaps?’ Swilley queried his caution.

  ‘People with two names generally have something to hide. If two, why not three or four? But it’s a jumping-off place. You can start searching records for it.’

  He took Atherton with him to Ruskin House, along with Hart and LaSalle to start canvassing neighbours. It was getting late enough now for people to start arriving home from work.

  At the first glance, Kimmelman’s flat looked as though a bomb had hit it.

  ‘Trashed!’ said Atherton, taking photos from the doorway.

  ‘Someone didn’t like him. I’m amazed the other residents didn’t hear something,’ said LaSalle.

  ‘We don’t know they didn’t,’ said Hart. ‘People who live in flats learn to mind their own business.’

  ‘But this must have made a hell of a noise,’ said LaSalle.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Slider. ‘If you put things down rather than throwing them. And if it was the murderer, he’d know he wasn’t going to be disturbed, so he could take his time.’

  ‘Uh-oh. Trouble,’ Hart said. Doors to either side were opening. Neighbours were getting curious. Hart and LaSalle peeled off, while Atherton went on taking photos and Slider stared slowly around.

  Finally he said, ‘Stand back from it, mentally. Get the wider picture. This isn’t just random destruction.’

  ‘No, it’s total destruction,’ Atherton agreed.

  The flat, as they knew from the floor plan, consisted of a large living room, with a kitchen area at one end, divided off by an island unit, and a bedroom and bathroom. From the viewpoint here at the door, the kitchen was at the near end, and the bedroom was through a door off to the left, backing onto Mrs Greenwood’s flat – presumably, onto her bedroom. Straight ahead in the far wall was a window, and beside it a door opened into the bathroom, which was housed in a rear addition which jutted out from the back of the building.

  Everything within view had been violated. Every drawer had been removed and upended, every cupboard and shelf
emptied, the sofa and armchairs gaped, their upholstery ripped. The curtains were down, the pictures had been taken off the walls and their backs slashed.

  ‘It’s not mindless violence,’ Slider said. ‘This is a search. They’ve taken down the light shades. They haven’t smashed them, as they would if it was destruction.’ There had evidently been two wall sconces and a central light, and the art-deco glass covers were lying, intact, on the disembowelled sofa, while the metal plates at the back of the sconces had been unscrewed from the wall. ‘Not just a search, but a professional one. See, they’ve even prised off the picture rail and skirting board.’

  ‘And they’ve taken the carpet up,’ Atherton noted. The flat had 1930’s parquet floor all through, but there was a square Turkish carpet in the living-room area, which had been rolled up. ‘Very thorough.’

  ‘That’s why it didn’t make much noise,’ said Slider. ‘They didn’t want to be disturbed. Even the neighbour who did hear something only thought he was packing. And another thing,’ he went on, ‘if the search had to be this professional, they must have thought Kimmelman would be equally professional at hiding whatever it was. Your average bod doesn’t get much further than the inside of the lavatory cistern. They must have believed he’d be a lot more cunning than that. So what can you deduce from all this?’

  ‘It must have been something important they were looking for. Something small, or they wouldn’t have taken off the picture rail.’

  ‘But not flat,’ Slider suggested, ‘like a piece of paper, or they’d have had the wallpaper off.’

  ‘Can you hide things under the wallpaper?’

  ‘Ease it off at the seam, and glue it back down afterwards,’ said Slider. ‘I would also deduce,’ he added, ‘that they probably didn’t find whatever it was.’

  ‘Now you’ve lost me,’ Atherton said.

  ‘As soon as they found it, they’d have stopped,’ said Slider. ‘The whole flat has been taken apart, which suggests that the search was unsuccessful.’ He reached up a hand and eased his finger along the top of the architrave above the door out in the passage. It came down dusty. ‘That’s good,’ he said.

  ‘It is?’