by Rennie Airth
‘Comme ça.’ She had gestured with a jerk of her red head. ‘The same.’
Cook had noted it down as five feet ten inches and then quickly determined that the man’s face and figure had been lean and his hair black and cut short.
‘What about his eyes?’ he had asked then, and Florrie had shrugged.
‘At night in the blackout all eyes are dark.’ She spoke with an accent, one she might even have exaggerated a bit, or so Billy thought, rolling her rs and saying ‘ze’ when she meant ‘the’. ‘Perhaps you already know zat, Inspecteur.’ Her smile had been half taunting, half provocative, and Lofty had chosen to ignore it, staying bent over his notepad.
‘And what was he wearing?’
‘Wearing … ?’ Florrie had considered the question for some time, gazing up at the ceiling as if the answer lay there. ‘A dark coat and a hat is all I remember. He was carrying … how do you call it? A case?’
‘A suitcase?’
‘Non … plus petite. It was smaller.’ She demonstrated with her hands.
‘A briefcase, then?’ Cook asked, and she nodded.
‘Exactement.’
‘Could he have been a businessman?’
She shrugged.
It was then that Cook had asked his witness to describe her brush with the man, and Florrie had launched into a graphic description of their brief encounter.
‘I have come up the stairs, oui, I am standing there, and this man, ce connard, he asks me if I have seen a woman carrying two bags.’ She had shrugged. ‘I know who he means, it is the same girl who went past me, but I think maybe he would like to stop and talk, so I make a joke, I say, “What’s your hurry?” ’Her voice took on a droll note. ‘I ask him if he want to spend some time with me. I am being friendly. Tu comprends?’
Out of the corner of his eye Billy saw a cynical smile flit across Joe Grace’s thin, pockmarked countenance.
‘But he only asks again about this girl, where she has gone, and when he speak a second time I change my mind. Even though he is smiling I know this is one I don’t want. So I say, “What’s it to you?” Et sans rien dire il me prend par la gorge, le salaud.’
‘What’s that? What did you say?’ Cook struck the table with his fist in frustration. ‘Speak English, damn it.’
‘He grab me by the throat.’ Florrie spat the words back.‘Comme ça, tu vois.’ She clutched her own throat. ‘And then he speak, but so softly only I can hear. He say, “Answer the question or I break your bloody neck.” ’
Flushed in the face, eyes bright, she stared at Cook.
‘And I tell you, Inspector.’ Her own voice had dropped to a hoarse whisper. ‘This one … he means it.’
In the silence that followed, Cook caught Billy’s eye.
‘And so?’
‘And so I tell him. I say she go that way …’ Florrie waved her hand. ‘And he leaves, walking fast, across the road, and when he is more than halfway I call after him. I shout, “Tu n’es qu’un connard … une merde”, which is a big piece of shit, if you want to know.’ Her voice had risen. ‘I tell him I won’t forget his face – “Je n’oublieraipas ta sale gueule,” I scream, so I know he will hear, and I am ready to run because he stops and turns and he looks at me and I think he is coming back. But instead he goes on and I don’t see him again.’
She sat back, breathing fast, her breasts rising and falling beneath her blouse. Like her cheeks they were flushed. After a moment’s pause, she spoke again, but in a lower tone.
‘You are thinking he is the one who killed this girl? Maybe you are right. I wish now that I had not told him which way she go.’
She glanced down at her hands. Then, as though to rid herself of some memory, she shook her head, reaching for her handbag at the same time. Unsnapping the clasp, she plucked out her compact and while Cook was checking through his notes she repaired the make-up on her face.
‘Eh bien. C’est fini?’
Cook glanced at Billy, who shook his head – he had nothing more to ask her – then at Madden, who was sitting a little back from the table, near the corner, with his arms folded and a pensive look on his face.
‘Sir … ?’
Lofty’s tone was respectful and it brought a grin to Billy’s lips. He had watched the effect of his old chief’s presence on both detectives with more than a little amusement. Even Joe Grace, as tough a nut as he’d encountered during his time in the Met, a man he’d once seen tackle a brace of thugs, enforcers for a smash-and-grab gang, and leave them both bloody and pleading for quarter, had moderated his usual abrasive manner and stood silent during the interview, as though out of deference to their visitor. And as for French Florrie, she had apparently decided from the outset that this was a male figure to whom she could relate, perhaps even flirt with, and had favoured him more than once with an inviting glance.
‘Yes, thank you, Inspector. There is one thing …’ Madden shifted in his chair so that he was facing the young woman. ‘You’ve been very patient, mademoiselle. I know how tedious this must be for you. But I was interested by something you’ve just said and I wondered if you could explain it.’
‘Something I said, monsieur?’
Florrie bestowed a smile on her new interrogator: not the faint, contemptuous curl of the lips she’d reserved thus far for Lofty and his two colleagues, men she was more usually inclined to view as her persecutors, but a generous parting of her wide mouth, offering a glimpse of white, pointed teeth.
‘Yes, to this man when he was leaving.’ Oblivious to the reaction he’d aroused, Madden pressed on. ‘You called him a name.’
‘C’est vrai. Une merde’ Unabashed, she repeated the words. ‘I already explain what it mean …’
‘Yes, yes, but you said it in French, am I right?’ Madden leaned forward.
‘Of course.’ She spread her hands.
‘Why?’
‘Why ?’ She stared at him.
‘Why not speak in English, so he would understand?’
For a full five seconds her face remained a blank. Then comprehension dawned in her eyes.
‘Mais oui.’ The smile returned. Vous avez raison. But I speak in French because I know he will understand.’
‘What was that?’ Lofty Cook’s glance shot up from his notebook.
‘I forget to tell you …’ She turned to him. ‘When he talk to me first, this man, and he ask about the girl who is carrying the bags, I pretend not to understand. So he tell me she is wearing this thing on her head –’ Florrie cupped her hands about her hair – ‘cette chose … je ne connais pas le nom … how do you call it?’
‘A hood,’ Madden said.
‘Exactement. An ’ood. This is a word I have not heard before and when he see that I don’t understand he tell me what it is – “un capuchon” – and then he speak to me in French. He ask me again which way she go. Voilà!’ She demonstrated with a flourish of her hand. ‘This is how I know.’
Cook put down his pen.
‘So what are you saying exactly?’ he asked her. ‘Was he French? Is that what you’re telling us?’
‘Ah, non…’ Florrie waved her hand dismissively. ‘Pas du tout. He is English. I know from his accent.’
The Bow Street inspector made a final note. He glanced at Madden to see if there was anything further he wished to say.
‘Just one last question.’ Madden smiled at the young woman. ‘You said earlier – when you were telling us how you met this man – that you changed your mind about him?’
‘Monsieur … ?’ She seemed puzzled by his query.
‘At first you tried to talk to him. But then you changed your mind; and quite suddenly, too. “This is one I know I don’t want.” That’s what you said. And I wondered why.’
She nodded her head thoughtfully. ‘It is true …’
Up to then he’d been polite. Even friendly. You said he was smiling. Isn’t that so?’
Again she nodded.
‘Why then?’
Florrie sat
silent. She seemed uncertain how to reply.
‘Ecoute … it is hard explain.’ She blew out her cheeks in frustration. ‘Mais il’ y avait quelque chose … there was something about this man that was not right.’
‘Not right?’
‘All I can tell you is what I know.’
‘Of course, mademoiselle.’
Madden waited while Florrie sat tapping one red fingernail on the table top, searching for the right words.
Maybe it is his eyes, or maybe it is his smile – ’she glanced at Madden – ‘but when I look at him I know.’
‘Know what?’
‘That this is one to stay away from.’
7
‘I MUST SAY I had hopes after reading Miss Desmoulins’s statement. I thought there was a good chance someone else might have spotted this man. That we’d have other sightings of him. But no luck so far, I’m afraid.’
Sinclair’s sigh was lost in the static of the telephone line.
‘I tell you, John, this case is as slippery as an eel. You no sooner think you’ve got a grip on it than it slides through your fingers.’
Three days had passed since Madden and his wife had returned from London, and true to his word the chief inspector had rung his old partner to bring him up to date on the progress of the investigation. His call had come while Madden and Helen were eating breakfast, a meal they took these days in the kitchen, where there was a wireless, so that they could listen to the news, even though lately it offered little in the way of comfort. The heady days of summer when the advance of the Allied armies across France after the breakthrough at Normandy had seemed irresistible were past. True, Paris had fallen without a fight, but the debacle at Arnhem had put a stop to further progress, at least for the time being, and if the reports published in the newspapers and broadcast on the radio were true, German forces were now digging in at their frontiers in preparation for the bitter fighting to come.
To Madden, scarred by his memories of the slaughter of the trenches – by the conviction bequeathed him that war was merely butchery under another name – the conflict had seemed endless, the years of peace a distant dream. Too old for active service, he had commanded the Highfield Home Guard until its disbandment a few months earlier; but only out of a sense of duty. Like others of his generation he had hoped never to put on a uniform again. And while he did not question his country’s decision to take up arms – on this occasion its cause seemed manifestly right, its enemy an abomination – he could not blind himself to the suffering brought about by years of war, nor to the continuing sacrifice of youth it entailed. He needed only to listen to the voice of a news reader on the radio with its familiar litany of actions fought and casualties suffered to picture his own son, whose ship even now must be ploughing the icy waters off Spitsbergen and Novaya Zemlya, a prey to enemy submarines, battered by storms and wrapped in perpetual winter darkness.
It was from this hellish realm of the imagination that Sinclair’s call had summoned him, and he’d had to struggle to adjust his thoughts to the cold reality of a young girl’s life snuffed out, her broken body cast aside, as the chief inspector’s familiar dry, clipped tones sounded in his ear.
‘Not that Bow Street have been idle, mind you. A description of the man our lady of the streets so kindly supplied has been posted at all tube stations between Waterloo and Tottenham Court Road, together with a photograph of Rosa, but no one’s come forward yet.’
Madden absorbed the information in silence. He’d taken the call in his study and was seated at the desk.
‘Cook also tried to get an artist’s sketch of this man with Florrie’s help. She did her best. She’s a willing witness. But it was too dark outside the tube station to make out his features clearly and they couldn’t come up with an image that satisfied her. So he’s going to have her look at some faces instead: pictures of past offenders, men with a record of violence against women, rapists included. Anyone who fits the general description and isn’t currently inside. They’re expecting her at Bow Street this afternoon. I’ll let you know if anything comes of it.’
Madden searched his memory.
‘What about Rosa’s diary?’ he asked. ‘Has anyone looked at it yet?’
‘Cook has spoken to Mrs Laski. Apparently the girl kept one for years and there are several volumes among the possessions she’d left at the flat for safe keeping. They go back some time. Mrs Laski has promised to look through them, though I gather she doesn’t fancy the task.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘They’re not about Rosa’s daily life as such, or so she says. They’re more a record of her thoughts and feelings, and Mrs Laski believes they deal particularly with the guilt she apparently felt at being the only one of her family to have survived. Poor child. Well, at least that pain is over for her.’
The chief inspector heaved another sigh.
‘This is one of those cases I’ve come to dread, John. It seems unconnected to anything. All we know for certain is this man was after Rosa for some reason. But did he kill her on the spur of the moment, or had he learned she was coming up to London? Was he lying in wait for her?’
‘My guess is the first,’ Madden replied, after a moment’s thought. ‘I don’t think he was prepared. He was on some business of his own; he had a briefcase with him. I think he spotted her on the tube, or at Waterloo. And it sounds as if he was taken by surprise: he was chasing after her, acting in haste …’ He broke off and there was silence between them. Sinclair waited a few moments, then spoke:
‘What is it, John? What’s on your mind?’
‘I’ve just had a thought … a strange one.’
‘Yes … ?’
‘If this man was so anxious to kill Rosa – if her death was a matter of such urgency to him – why hasn’t he been looking for her? A young Polish girl … she wouldn’t have been hard to find. He could have gone to a private enquiry agency. The Polish community would have been a good place to start. Why hasn’t anyone been asking questions?’
His words brought a grunt of surprise from his listener. Some moments passed before the chief inspector responded.
‘I’ve no idea,’ he said, finally. ‘But if he had, I think we’d know about it. Her aunt would have told us, or that farmer she worked for in Norfolk. You’d probably be aware of it yourself.’
‘Quite … but don’t you see – if he hasn’t been looking for her, that suggests he wasn’t expecting to find her. Not here in England, anyway.’
‘Go on.’
Assuming for a moment there was some earlier encounter between them, it must have happened abroad. In Poland – or France, when Rosa was there. Mind you, that would push the whole thing so far back in time …’
Madden fell silent. He could hear the rustle of papers and the mutter of another voice on the line.
‘Well, it’s something to think about, anyway.’ Having waited to see if his old partner had any more to add, Sinclair spoke again. But let’s see what today brings, shall we? What Florrie makes of our rogues’ gallery. She may spot a face she recognizes. We’re due some luck.’
With little to occupy him at the farm – the seasonal lull in work came as a welcome break – Madden spent the morning at home attending to odd jobs before walking in to Highfield after lunch and then making his way to Stratton Hall, on the outskirts of the village. A great-house since Tudor times, it was presently being used as a convalescent home for servicemen, but its owner, Lord Stratton, now in his late eighties, and a lifelong friend of Helen’s, still lived there in a wing of the rambling edifice, and both she and Madden made a practice of calling on the old gentleman at least once a week so as to keep him up to date with news from the village and the wider world outside.
Crossing the great forecourt in front of the house, Madden was hailed by a uniformed figure who had just climbed out of a khaki-coloured staff car.
‘Hello, John! What brings you to my lair?’
Although he was the commanding officer at Stratton
Hall, with the rank of colonel, Brian Chadwick retained many of the attitudes of the country GP he’d once been, and on arriving at Highfield two years earlier had quickly formed a friendship with Helen which had later been extended to her husband.
‘Come to see his nibs, have you?’
He joined Madden and they walked on together across the cobbles.
‘By the way, have they caught the man yet?’
‘Which man, Brian?’
‘The one who killed that girl who was working for you?’
‘Not yet.’
Madden glanced at his companion. The expression on Chadwick’s face suggested there might be a reason for his question beyond simple curiosity.
‘I ask because one of my young chaps is concerned. Well, not concerned, exactly. Upset, rather.’ The colonel struggled with his vocabulary. He read a report on the inquest in The Times, just a paragraph or two. It was the first he’d heard of it and he got on to me at once.’
‘Got on to you? Isn’t he here?’
‘No, in Oxford.’ Chadwick frowned. On the short side, and thickset, he was constantly bemoaning the size of his waistline. Helen had told him, in all seriousness, doctor to doctor, that he should put himself on a diet and have his blood pressure checked regularly unless he wanted his chronic shortness of breath to develop into something more sinister. We sent him to a hospital there that specializes in plastic surgery. He had facial burns. Perhaps you’ve seen him around. A young pilot officer. Tyson’s his name.’
Madden shook his head.
‘He was shot down over the Channel and picked up. But his plane caught fire before he could bale out, hence the burns. He had other wounds, too, but they’ve healed and he was recuperating here before having his face seen to.’
Chadwick paused for a much-needed breather.
‘But why was he so concerned?’ Madden asked, his curiosity piqued. ‘Did he know her?’
‘Oh, no. Nothing like that.’ Chadwick dismissed the possibility with a wave of his hand. But he’d heard her play at the concert we had here – he’s musical – and he actually spoke to her the day she went up to London. He was on his way to Oxford himself. They were in the same compartment. But you can ask him about it yourself, if you like. He’ll be here in a few days.’