by J F Straker
‘Most untypical,’ Nicodemus said. ‘She can’t have had much going for her.’
‘I wouldn’t say that. Red hair, and a fairly substantial bust.’ Jasmine giggled, and Johnny smiled at her. It was comforting to have someone on his side. Right now, Knickers was definitely anti. ‘No call to be jealous, love. Yours has greater potential. It hasn’t quite reached its peak, that’s all. Anyway, Knickers, what’s biting you? It’s no skin off your nose if I get nicked.’
Nicodemus shrugged. He was in an irritable mood. He had travelled down from Liverpool overnight, his mission having been completed earlier than expected, and had been unable to get a sleeper. Johnny’s confession, after an even later arrival than usual, had just about sent him up the wall. Nor did he approve of the confession being made in Jasmine’s hearing. The girl was loyal enough. But she was young, and young girls talk.
‘It won’t exactly boost the agency’s image if one of the principals is indicted for murder,’ he said crossly.
Johnny hadn’t slept well either. Indicted for murder! That prospect had been on his mind for most of the night. Striving to examine it objectively, he had decided that, should his identity be discovered, much would depend on the time when Alice Slade had died. If, as the redhead had said, she had been out when he called at two o’clock, then it must have been after her return. He could establish an alibi for most of the afternoon and evening: the hospital, the vicarage, the café. Between whiles he had been travelling. As he saw it, the only times during which he could be suspected of killing Alice Slade were immediately after he had spoken to the redhead (she had disappeared upstairs before he left) and the twenty minutes or so previous to his second visit. If it could be shown that Alice was alive after the first period and had died before the second, he was in the clear. For murder, anyway. There could be other, less serious, charges.
Jasmine said anxiously, ‘Oh, no! They couldn’t do that, could they, Mr Inch?’
‘No, gorgeous, they couldn’t.’ He tried to avoid addressing her by name. Whenever he did so he wanted to laugh. ‘Jasmine’ was too absurd; there was nothing flowerlike about Jasmine Jones. Something arboreal would have been more suitable. ‘As I have already explained, my alibi is one hundred per cent secure.’
‘Ninety per cent,’ Nicodemus corrected him. ‘And that missing ten per cent could fix you.’ He picked up a newspaper. ‘Incidentally, I suppose it was Alice Slade you uncovered in the bath? It says here a woman named Dolores Cash was found murdered in Finsbury Park yesterday, but there’s no mention of Alice Slade.’ He tossed the paper across to Johnny. ‘Take a look. It’s in the Stop Press.’
The account was brief, giving no details. ‘It was Alice’s apartment,’ Johnny said. ‘The redhead said so. So did the letters I found under the bed. Either two women were murdered in Finsbury yesterday, or Dolores Cash was Alice Slade’s professional name.’
‘The oldest?’
‘Well, she wasn’t exactly at her best when I saw her, poor thing, but she had the look. So did the redhead. No. 108 is probably a tart’s burrow. And Slade called her a whore. I didn’t realize he meant it literally.’ Johnny put down the paper. ‘What took you to Liverpool, by the way? Another fugitive husband?’
‘A fugitive daughter. She didn’t want her parents to know she’s joined the club.’
‘Club? What club, Mr Nicodemus?’ This from Jasmine.
‘It’s a facetious expression for a woman’s most natural function,’ Johnny explained. ‘It happens to most. It could happen to you one day.’ Eyeing her bulging frame, he shook his head. ‘Someone would have to work at it, though. Might be difficult to make ends meet, if you see what I mean.’ Her look suggested she didn’t. Johnny decided not to enlighten her, and slid from the table. ‘Well, I’m off. Gossiping with you two won’t bring home the Bullock.’
‘Off where?’ Nicodemus asked.
‘Westleigh. I’m hoping the vicar may be helpful.’ Johnny hesitated. ‘Talking of help I suppose you couldn’t manage a visit to Finsbury Park some time today? It might be dicey if I went myself.’
‘I might. Why?’
‘I’d like to know more about the late Mrs Slade. If the law isn’t around you should be able to get at the redhead. I bet she could wise you up.’ Johnny grinned. ‘But watch it, mate. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’
‘Is there anything you wouldn’t do.’
‘Not much. Oh! She mentioned someone named Jack. “Alice might be with Jack”, she said. Could be an angle there.’
As he took his coat from the peg Jasmine said, ‘Did you see my note, Mr Inch? About ringing Miss Frazer?’
‘Yes. I got back too late.’ Johnny was surprised to discover that for the past twelve hours the delectable Polly had been completely absent from his thoughts. Still, it had taken a murder to do it. ‘Thanks for reminding me. I’ll give her a ring now.’
It wasn’t important, Polly told him. Merely that she had thought over his advice to burn the letter, and had decided not to follow it. Suppose the letter had to be produced at the final rendezvous — as proof of identity, say? Johnny agreed that that was possible, but unlikely; Slade had not laid it down as a condition. If Obi could repeat the directions, that should be proof enough. ‘Still, please yourself,’ he said. ‘You’re the boss. How about dinner tonight?’
‘Not tonight,’ she said. ‘I’m booked. I could make it tomorrow.’
Tomorrow, then, he said, and rang off.
The vicar of Westleigh was a short, tubby man in advanced middle age. He greeted Johnny with polite suspicion. Yes, he said, he had posted some letters for the late Mr Slade, but before he answered further questions perhaps Mr Inch would be good enough to explain his interest in the matter. Johnny had anticipated suspicion, and explained that he was acting for a Mr Bullock, who had received a letter from Mr Slade naming him as a beneficiary in his estate. But no-one seemed to know of what the estate consisted, or who was handling it. ‘Mr Bullock received the letter shortly after Mr Slade’s death,’ Johnny said. ‘We think it must have been one of those posted by you. Does the name ring a bell?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘How about the other letters? Can you remember the names of any of the addressees? If we could contact them they might be able to clarify the position.’
‘I see. Well, I can’t help, I’m afraid. I didn’t examine the letters; just stuck them in my desk. They stayed there until I heard he was dead. Then I posted them, as he’d requested.’
‘You didn’t examine them when you posted them?’
‘I did not. I fear I lack your curiosity, Mr Inch. I just took them from the desk, added them to a pile of other letters, and posted them.’
‘Mrs Slade?’ Johnny asked hopefully, ignoring the slight rebuke. ‘You don’t recall seeing her name on one of the envelopes?’
‘Was he married? I didn’t know. But as I have already told you, I didn’t examine them.’ The vicar sounded impatient. ‘So, if you’ll excuse me —’
Disappointed, Johnny excused him, and tried the hospital again. The pretty nurse was less friendly than on his previous visit. Two to four were visiting hours, she told him, and matron insisted they were strictly adhered to. Johnny pointed out that he wasn’t visiting a patient, he was there to see the orderly, Basil Cooke. In that case, she said, he must wait until Cooke was off duty. But Johnny was persuasive, and she relented eventually. She told him to wait in the waiting-room at the entrance to the block, and she would ask Cooke to spare him a moment.
Johnny waited. Unlike some, he rather liked the smell of a hospital. He had once been an overnight patient, and it had seemed to him that, provided one wasn’t seriously ill or in pain, there was much to be said for relaxing in a comfortable bed, with pretty girls to wash and feed and generally fuss over one. It wouldn’t be a bad way to spend a couple of weeks. In the winter, say, during a cold, damp spell.
He was idly flipping through the magazines on a centre table when the soft pad of plimsol
ls made him look up. A man in a white coat had come into the room: a skinny man with a bald crown, and a thin face heavily pitted. Johnny recognized him at once. This was the man he had bumped into in Duxbury Road the previous evening.
‘I’m Basil Cooke,’ the man said. ‘You wanted to see me?’
His easy manner and expression suggested that recognition was not mutual. That was not surprising; Johnny had had his back to the nearest lamp standard, Cooke had been facing it. What surprised Johnny was that, until now, he had completely forgotten the incident. He should have found it significant. The man had been in a hurry, he had looked dazed and shocked — too shocked even to murmur an apology or acknowledge Johnny’s — he had come from the direction of No. 108, where Alice Slade had been murdered. To an ex-copper, all this should have added up to something that at least merited consideration. And he had been dumb enough to miss it.
‘The name’s Inch,’ Johnny said, trying not to stare. ‘I wanted to ask you about a man who died here recently. Martin Slade. He seems to have been a somewhat unsociable character, but I’m told he talked to you occasionally. Is that so?’
Was it imagination, or had the muscles in the thin face contracted? Cooke’s voice sounded natural enough when he answered. ‘Not so as you’d notice it,’ he said. ‘Just a load of complaints, that’s all he gave me. Didn’t like this, didn’t like that, and why weren’t we doing more to help him?’ He shrugged. ‘We get ‘em like that occasionally. What was it you wanted to know?’
Slade had given the vicar four letters to post, and these would be to the four beneficiaries. But how about the ‘someone’ who was to arrange the rendezvous? The vicar had been Slade’s only visitor, other than Johnny and the police, and Slade had made no friends among hospital staff or patients. So there could have been no personal contact with the ‘someone’. As Johnny saw it, that implied a fifth letter. And Cooke was the most likely person to have posted it.
He told Cooke about the letters posted by the vicar, giving no indication of their content. ‘We have reason to believe there was a fifth letter,’ he said. ‘Posted later, perhaps. We’re trying to trace the addressee. Can you help us?’
‘Who’s “us”?’ Cooke asked. ‘The police?’
‘I’m a detective. The police are interested, naturally.’
Not bad, that, Johnny thought. Pretty slick, in fact. It suggested the law without claiming to be the law. And if he needed authority, either real or implied, to put pressure on Cooke, the law was the strongest.
‘Well, I’m sorry,’ Cooke said. ‘I can’t help you. I don’t know anything about any letters.’
‘That’s a pity.’ Johnny paused, staring at the man. ‘Well, let’s get personal, then, shall we? What were you doing over in Finsbury Park last night?’
Cooke’s jaw dropped, his eyeballs almost popped from their sockets. His narrow shoulders jerked backward. But he was quick to recover.
‘Last night?’ He managed to look perplexed. ‘What on earth are you talking about? Finsbury Park? I was here, in Westleigh.’
‘I’m talking about Alice Slade,’ Johnny told him. ‘Martin Slade’s wife, the woman who was murdered last night in Finsbury Park. And you know something? I rather think you killed her.’
‘Me? Good God! You must be round the twist. I didn’t even know the woman.’
‘You didn’t have to know her to kill her.’
‘Perhaps not. But —’ Cooke took a deep breath. ‘Oh, this is ridiculous! I mean, I not only didn’t know her, I’ve never even heard of her. Slade never mentioned he’d got a wife.’ He laughed. It was a nervous laugh, but Johnny gave it no particular significance. Even an innocent man can be nervous when accused of murder. What he found significant was that Cooke showed no sign of anger; he would have expected anger had the accusation been false. ‘What on earth makes you think I killed her? I mean, you must have a reason, eh?’
‘She was found dead shortly after you left her apartment.’ More incisive to make a statement than to ask a question. ‘I’d say that’s a fairly sound reason.’
Cooke sat down, spreading his hands wide. ‘If it were true, yes. But it isn’t. I told you, I was nowhere near Finsbury Park last night. If anyone says I was well, it must be a case of mistaken identity. Who was it, anyway? I mean, who claims to have seen me there?’
‘I do,’ Johnny said. ‘In Duxbury Road. You bumped into me as you were running away from the house. Remember?’
Cooke stared at him. His right eye had started to tic, and he put a hand to his face and rubbed it. Then he sighed. The sigh seemed to deflate his meagre frame into still more meagre proportions.
‘It was dark,’ he said. ‘I-I didn’t recognize you.’
Johnny sighed too, glad to have broken through. Experience had taught him that the first leg of the confession was usually the hardest. The rest should be comparatively easy.
‘Why did you kill her?’ he asked.
‘I didn’t. I swear I didn’t. I admit I went to the house. But she was dead when I got there. I found her. She — she was in the bath.’
Probably true, Johnny thought. Cooke would have left the house only minutes before he got there himself. And Alice Slade had been cold when he touched her, she must have been dead some hours. So Cooke hadn’t killed her. Not unless he had stayed there for an hour or two afterwards. And why would he do that? To search the apartment? Johnny had searched the apartment, and it had taken him little more than thirty minutes. But this was not the moment to acknowledge the man’s innocence. He would undoubtedly talk more freely if he believed he had to prove it.
‘So you didn’t kill her, eh?’ Johnny reflected with relief that the previous night’s collision not only appeared to establish Cooke’s innocence, it could also establish his own. Not that he expected to come under suspicion. But it was nice to know the evidence was there. ‘Then what were you doing in her apartment?’
Cooke had taken a tin from his pocket and was rolling a cigarette. Johnny suspected there might be rules against hospital staff smoking while on duty, but apparently the man’s agitation was more compelling than rules. He had gone there on impulse, Cooke said. He had been clearing out Slade’s locker after his death, and had come across a letter giving Mrs Slade’s address. (My letter, Johnny thought. Did I sign it, or did I just put my initials? The name doesn’t seem to ring a bell with him, anyway.) He had been surprised to learn that Slade had been married. Still, there it was in the letter. And as she had never visited her husband in hospital it seemed likely that she had not known he was there. In which case she might not even know he was dead. ‘I thought someone ought to tell her,’ Cooke said. The cigarette wasn’t drawing well, and he took it from his mouth, nipped off the end, and relit it. ‘It wasn’t none of my business, I suppose. But I was off duty, and I’d nothing special on, so I — well, I went along.’
‘Noble of you,’ Johnny said.
‘Yes. Well, I knocked on the door once or twice. But no-one answered, and when I tried the handle I found it wasn’t locked.’ Cooke shrugged. ‘So I went in.’
‘Do you make a habit of barging in on people uninvited?’ The pot and the kettle, Johnny thought.
Ash dropped on to his coat as he shook his head. ‘Of course not. But I’d come all that way and — well, I was curious, I suppose. Anyway, like I said, I went in. She wasn’t there. But there was another room, and ...’ He shuddered. ‘I told you, she was in the bath.’
‘Covered by a bedspread.’
‘No. I did that. I mean, working in a hospital, it seemed — well, more decent.’ He stared at Johnny. ‘How did you know about the bedspread?’
‘The police were called.’
Another equivocation. As before, Cooke accepted it.
‘Yes. Yes, of course.’ His cigarette was out. He put the stub in his pocket and stood up. ‘Well, what happens now? I mean, I had absolutely nothing to do with her death — I found her, that’s all — but I suppose you’ll want me to make a statement. Can I do tha
t here? Or do I have to go to the police station?’
‘The statement can wait,’ Johnny said. ‘I want the low-down on that letter first. The one you said you didn’t know about. Not true, eh? There was a letter.’
Cooke nodded. ‘I’m sorry. But Slade asked me to keep it to myself, and I didn’t realize it might have something to do with this other business.’ The apology was given lightly, almost casually. ‘Look, Sergeant — it is Sergeant, isn’t it? You didn’t say. Just that you’re a detective.’
‘The name’s Inch.’
‘I know. But what’s your rank?’
‘No rank,’ Johnny said. It was time to declare himself. Equivocation was fair tactics, but he wasn’t prepared to lie. ‘I’m a private detective, not a policeman.’
He was fascinated by the change in the man as he realized how he had been duped. His lower jaw sagged, then tightened and thrust forward with his head. His brows lifted, dilating the eyes, in which red specks grew and spread. Johnny suspected that had he suffered from high blood pressure he might have burst a blood vessel.
‘You — you bastard!’ he spluttered. Saliva frothed at the corners of his mouth. ‘You bloody fraud! It’s against the law to impersonate a policeman, damn you!’
‘You don’t have to teach me the law,’ Johnny said. ‘I spent over ten years in the Force. And I never claimed to be a policeman. That was your idea. I said I was a detective, which I am. So let’s get back to business, shall we? Tell me about that letter.’
‘Sod the letter! And sod you, too. I’m saying nothing.’
‘No?’ Johnny shrugged. ‘You’re a fool, Cooke. It’s either me or the police, and the police could be very nasty. Very nasty indeed. I mean, you being in Alice Slade’s apartment just after she was killed — you think they’ll believe you didn’t do it? Particularly as you failed to report her death. That makes you look guilty as hell. Why didn’t you report it, by the way?’
‘I didn’t want to get involved.’ Talk of the police had tamed his belligerence, but he was still surly. ‘Anyway, you were there after me. Did you report it?’