by Rennie Airth
‘If it’s the same Nelly Stover. Tell me, did she mention having a husband? Bob was his name, I think. A merchant seaman.’
Billy grimaced. ‘Then it’s her, all right. She told me her old man copped it in ’42. His ship went down in the Atlantic. Torpedoed. I’d asked about him because I thought with them both coming from Bethnal Green one or other might have known something more about Meeks. Who his friends were, for example. But she said they’d moved away from there years ago and she hadn’t seen Alfie again until he turned up one day at the market with his folding table and a suitcase of goods. She didn’t recognize him, but when she heard his name she went over to say hello and tell him who she was. That’s how he came to leave his stuff with her.’
Madden mused for a moment. ‘Did she happen to mention her son?’ he asked.
Billy shook his head.
‘Why?’ Sinclair asked. He’d been listening to them with interest.
‘It’s coming back to me now.’ Madden smiled. ‘He was a handful. Not a bad boy, just wild. In with the wrong lot. I caught him trying to break into a tobacconist. I knew if I charged him he’d end up in a borstal, so instead I dragged him off by the scruff of his neck and put him in Nelly’s hands. She had a fish and chip shop then, and the way I heard it she walloped him so hard with one of her saucepans he had bruises for weeks. But he never put a foot wrong again so far as I know, and the last I heard he’d got himself a job.’ With a sigh he turned back to Billy. ‘I’m sorry to hear about her husband. Tell me, how did she strike you? Is she well? She must be on her own now.’
‘Not quite. She’s got a couple of grandkids living with her. I know, because she shut up shop while we were still talking and went off to collect them. Told me if I had any more questions I’d have to come back another day.’ He grinned. ‘A tough old bird, as I say. But I liked her.’
‘So she knew Alfie when he was a boy …’ Madden was looking thoughtful. ‘I might have guessed. It was a close-knit community.’ He caught Billy’s eye. ‘Alfie’s father was a villain called Jonah Meeks. He was the worst kind of bully; hated by all. His body was fished out of an abandoned cistern one day. It was ruled an accident.’
‘Yes, I got that from records. And his mother died when he was ten. Nelly Stover told me. There was a stepmother later, but she’s gone, too. He didn’t seem to have any family. Nor friends, come to that.’
‘Did she know about the Wapping business?’ Sinclair asked. ‘Before you told her, I mean?’
Billy nodded. ‘She said she couldn’t understand what Alfie was doing in that sort of company. Said he was a sad little man.’
While he was speaking, the head waiter had appeared beside their table. He bent to whisper in Sinclair’s ear and the chief inspector rose to his feet.
‘Would you excuse me? I’ve a call.’
He was back after only a minute, and it was plain to see from his expression that something momentous had occurred. He signalled at once for the bill.
‘That was Bennett,’ he said, glancing at Madden. ‘Do you remember me telling you about that French detective who came over here before the war to help us with a case?’
‘The one who’d been in charge of the Fontainebleau case?’
Sinclair nodded. ‘Commissaire Duval. Well, he’s just been on the phone from Paris. Don’t ask me how he got through, but it seems our guess was right. It’s Marko we’re after. Duval says there’s no mistake.’
‘How does he know?’ Madden’s voice carried an edge of excitement. ‘How can he be sure?’
‘I’ve no idea.’ Sinclair rose and his two guests followed suit. ‘But we’ll find out soon enough. Bennett wants us back right away.’ He touched Madden’s arm. ‘You, too, John. He made that clear. He’s got something to tell you.’
‘Angus … at last!’
The assistant commissioner looked up from his desk as Sinclair came in. Several sheets of paper covered with his scrawl lay on the blotter in front of him; he’d been peering down at them.
‘Madden, how are you?’ He had just caught sight of the chief inspector’s companion. ‘Come in, please.’ He rose and they shook hands.
Bennett gestured to the chairs that were already lined up, facing his desk. His face was a little flushed.
‘Duval asked for you first, Angus, but you were out, so the switchboard sensibly put him on to me. He’d been trying for a couple of days to get through. Said in the end they’d “gone to the top”, whatever that means, but it’ll give you some idea of how important they think this is. Unfortunately we only spoke for five minutes before the telephone people cut us off. However …’
He paused to catch breath, and as he did so he sought Madden’s eye.
‘Angus will have told you already. It’s the same man.’
Madden nodded. ‘We were wondering how they knew.’
‘It was that list Solly Silverman had on him. They’re diamonds that were stolen in Paris on the eve of the German occupation. From a furrier, Duval said. I’ve got his name here …’ Bennett scrabbled among the scattered sheets of paper. ‘Sobel …’ He peered down through his glasses. ‘He’d bought them that same day from a dealer. He meant to make a run for it to Spain. He was Jewish, you see …’ Glancing up, he found the chief inspector’s gaze on him.
‘Was you say—?’
‘Yes, he’s dead. Murdered. Garrotted.’
‘By the man who stole the jewels?’
Bennett nodded. ‘The one they call Marko. They’ve sent us a copy of their dossier on the case, which will explain how they know it was him. That and a lot besides. It’s in the MP’s pouch that came over today. We should have it by tomorrow. There’s not much more I can tell you. The line was bad. Duval kept having to repeat himself. He sent you his regards, by the way. I asked him how things were in Paris. He said “bloody awful”.’
Bennett took off his glasses. He rubbed the bridge of his nose.
‘There was one other thing he mentioned; it’s of special concern to you, Madden. I believe it answers your question.’
Their eyes met.
‘This furrier who was murdered in Paris. Sobel. He was Polish by extraction and he’d offered to give two young Poles a lift to Spain in his car. They wanted to escape as well. Duval doesn’t know their names, but one of them was a young woman, and it seems she arrived at Sobel’s house minutes after he was murdered. It’s possible she saw the killer, Duval says. She may even have come face to face with him.’
Bennett brooded for a moment.
‘He didn’t finish telling me about it – we were cut off then – but I gathered she fled from the scene and the police were unable to locate her afterwards. They had to assume that she and her compatriot, whoever he was, managed to escape from France by some other means. At all events they’ve never been found. We’ll learn more about it when this dossier arrives. But it struck me at once: she must have been the same young woman you had working for you.’
‘So that was it!’ Madden, his face in shadow now that the afternoon light was dying, sat stunned. ‘ always knew there had to be a reason why he killed her.’
‘He must have caught a glimpse of her the other night … the killer … this Marko. In the Underground, perhaps. If he recognized her then it’s odds on they did come face to face in Paris, and that would have been enough …’
‘Enough?’
Still dwelling on what he’d heard, Madden’s attention had strayed.
‘Enough reason to kill her.’ Bennett explained, and after a momentary pause Madden dipped his head in silent agreement.
‘Being the man he is.’
16
INFORMED BY THE Military Police headquarters at Chichester that it would be mid-morning before the package sent from Paris the day before reached London, Sinclair elected not to alter his accustomed routine and went to see Bennett as usual at half-past nine, leaving Lily Poole behind with orders to let him know the moment it arrived.
‘Tell Inspector Styles to stand by, too.�
�
His deepening involvement in the inquiry that had started with the murder of Rosa Nowak had not relieved the chief inspector of his other duties, and as ever he brought with him the crime report for the preceding twenty-four hours to run through with his superior. But the now familiar litany of pilfering and black-market dealing compiled by the various metropolitan divisions held little interest for either man that morning, and before long Bennett reverted to the subject that occupied both their minds.
‘I couldn’t get to sleep last night. I kept thinking of that girl coming up to London to see her aunt, never dreaming … but why didn’t she report it? What she witnessed in Paris? Why stay silent all these years?’
‘John was wondering the same thing. We discussed it before he went off yesterday.’ Sinclair settled himself in his chair; his gout had eased somewhat and he was thankful for the break from nagging pain. ‘But it’s not that hard to understand. If she’d stayed on in Paris to give a statement to the police she might well have ended up being trapped there. They would almost certainly have held her as a material witness. And once the Occupation was in force, what would have become of her then? She did the human thing: she saved herself. Perhaps the man she was travelling with helped to make up her mind. But whatever the explanation, I can’t find it in my heart to blame her.’
‘Granted, but when she’d reached safety here – when she was settled in England – why not go to the police then and tell them everything? It’s not as though we would have taken any action against her.’
‘I suppose that’s true …’ The chief inspector’s tone belied his words. ‘But could she be sure of that? After all, she’d committed a serious offence: she’d left the scene of a murder. And she was here on sufferance, remember. She was an alien in wartime, with all the sense of insecurity that brings. It would have been tempting simply to forget what had occurred, or at any rate push it to the back of her mind. To tell herself there was no way she could help the French police, not with Paris under German occupation.’
The assistant commissioner thought for a moment.
‘And that’s Madden’s view, too, is it?’
‘I believe so.’ Sinclair frowned. ‘But he was going to ask Helen her opinion. Neither of them got close to the girl while she was working for them, but of the two, Helen probably knew her better. It was her impression Rosa’s melancholy sprang from the tragedy that had overtaken her family, and though it’s tempting now to think it might have had another cause, I very much doubt it. After all, whatever she witnessed in Paris had happened four years before. There’s no reason to think it still loomed large in her mind. Not with all that has happened in the world since then. But it’s unlikely we’ll ever get to the bottom of that. If Rosa told anyone about it, it was most likely her aunt, and I’m afraid that road’s closed to us now.’
‘Has she gone then?’ Bennett asked.
‘Yesterday afternoon. We rang the hospital before Madden left. We were told she’d fallen into a coma some time earlier, so we couldn’t have spoken to her even if we’d wanted to.’
The chief inspector bit his lip.
‘It may seem cruel to say so, but at least we can put Rosa’s death to one side now. We know why this man killed her. It was because she could identify him. He knew that if ever he was arrested she could send him to the guillotine – for the murder of Sobel at least, if not for any of his other victims. The same applies to Florrie Desmoulins. He knew we were bound to interview her – that we’d make the link between the man she had words with and Rosa’s murderer – so the sooner he cut that thread the better. His pattern doesn’t change. Fontainebleau … Wapping. It’s the same wherever you look. He leaves no witnesses behind.’
‘Yes, but still …’ The assistant commissioner stirred unhappily behind his desk. ‘He was in no danger of arrest when he murdered Rosa Nowak. We had no idea he was here. All he’s done is stir up a hornet’s nest. It makes no sense to me.’
‘I agree. Until you look at it from his point of view.’ Sinclair eyed his superior meaningfully. To begin with there was no way he could have guessed that Rosa Nowak never made contact with the French police, never offered herself as a witness. He would have assumed the opposite, and that with Paris liberated now there was every chance the Sûreté was back on his trail. And since Britain was one of the countries he might have fled to, they were either already in touch with us, or soon would be. He was safe enough during the war years, but if a hunt for him was launched here then Rosa’s presence, her very existence, became a threat that he couldn’t ignore, especially as the French were bound to pass on her name to us. Or so he’d assume. So his action was pre-emptive. In effect, he was cutting the chain of evidence before the links could be joined. It’s his actions after that that are harder to read. Killing Rosa seems to have forced him into further action. Immediately afterwards he set up the Wapping robbery, and while we can’t be sure what his motives were it suggests he wanted to be ready to leave the country at the earliest possible moment once the war was over.’
‘With money in his pocket?’ Bennett asked, and Sinclair nodded.
‘He set out to lure Silverman to that pub with a case full of cash and he succeeded. Now he has both the money and the diamonds. He’s ready to run. At least, that’s the theory we’re working on. But John has raised an interesting question. Why was he in such a hurry? Granted Rosa was a threat he had to deal with. But once she was dead he was under no pressure: he could have planned his next move carefully, chosen someone more reliable than Alfie Meeks to do his bidding. He was safe for the time being. So why the rush?’
The assistant commissioner had been listening closely. ‘So he’s still giving this some thought,’ he remarked. ‘Madden, I mean.’
‘Sir … ?’
‘I would have thought he’d got the answer he was looking for. Why that girl was murdered.’
‘That’s true, certainly.’ The chief inspector chuckled. ‘But John’s got more of an old copper’s instinct in him than he’s prepared to admit. He doesn’t like letting go. But you’re right – there’s nothing more he can do. This is a purely police matter now: a question of tracking this Marko down. We’re having a drink later, by the way. John’s going back to Highfield tomorrow, but he wants to know what’s in that dossier before he leaves.’
‘A question of tracking him down …’ Bennett was reflecting on the other’s words. ‘Just how difficult do you think that will be?’
‘Well, it rather depends.’ Sinclair scratched his head. ‘Granted, we know when he arrived: it must have been in the days, or at most weeks, following the German occupation of Paris, and if he entered the country under an alias – as a foreigner – we can probably get on to him quickly. His name would have been noted and placed on the official register of aliens. His whereabouts now would be a matter of record.’
‘You say “if”.’
The chief inspector nodded. He began gathering his papers.
‘Unfortunately we’ve every reason to believe he’s British, and if so it’s more than likely that he arrived here under his own name – his real name – which he may have been keeping in reserve for just such an eventuality; and if that’s the case, finding him could prove a lot harder.’
Bennett watched as he rose to his feet.
‘Perhaps the French can help us there,’ he suggested. ‘That information might be in the dossier.’
‘It might.’ Sinclair stood poised to go. ‘But I doubt it. If Duval was aware he was British he would have said so yesterday. And if he knew his real name, he would have told us.’
In the event, it took the chief inspector very little time to discover he was right on both counts. On returning to his office he found a package wrapped in brown paper delivered by a military courier only a few minutes earlier lying on his desk, and before the hour was out, with the help of a translator, he learned that in spite of the wealth of new information it contained, the one piece of knowledge they sought more than any other was stil
l to be unearthed.
‘All the French could tell us was what he was calling himself when he passed through Paris,’ he told Madden when they met that evening. ‘Klaus Meiring. He had French papers, and later it turned out he’d been living under the same name in Amsterdam. But there’s no Meiring listed as having entered this country in 1940, and although there are a couple of men with the same surname on the aliens register, neither one of them is our man. By the time he stepped ashore here he was someone else. British, at a guess, but that still doesn’t help. He came over at a time when the ferries had all been suspended: so anyone who crossed the Channel then must have hired a French fishing boat to bring them over. As a number of people did, the Coast Guard tells us, and the proper procedure would have been for them to report their arrival both to the police and to Customs and Excise. However, I doubt our friend Marko did either. It’s far more likely he slipped ashore unnoticed, and if that’s the case it’s quite possible there’s no record of his arrival, no name we can trace.’
Somewhat to the chief inspector’s surprise, his old colleague had suggested they meet in Bloomsbury – he had left a telephoned message with the switchboard to that effect – and when Sinclair reached the designated rendezvous, a pub in Museum Street, he found it was little more than a stone’s throw from the spot where Rosa Nowak had been murdered.
‘I went over to the hospital where Mrs Laski was admitted,’ Madden told him when he arrived. He had already ordered a beer and was standing at the bar gazing into his glass (like a fortune-teller studying his crystal ball, Sinclair felt). ‘I wanted to be sure arrangements were in hand for her funeral. She had no family over here; no one other than her niece. But I found a Polish couple had got there before me and were taking care of things. Then I thought since I was in the area I’d have another look at the spot where Rosa was killed. I’ve only seen it by day. But it turned out to be a waste of time. That street’s pitch-dark. If he came up on her from behind, he must have eyes like a cat.’