Second Violin

by Lawton, John

  ‘In which case, he’s in the wrong outfit.’

  ‘Do I detect a hint of smugness, Sergeant Troy?’

  ‘You do. He’ll never get to be “Steerforth of the Yard” working for Special Branch. Murder is what matters. Murder’s what sells papers. Whatever went down at the Tea Rooms hasn’t even made the small print in the late extra. I don’t suppose it ever will. He may brag a bit to fellow officers, he brags to the papers he’s done for.’

  ‘Well, he works with what he’s got. That’s why I thought he might declare Rabbi Borg’s death to be Branch business. Given the way things are, he’d not have much difficulty justifying it. He might see it as an opportunity. Summat to be kept under wraps, hidden from the likes of you and investigated with an eye to impressing his masters. You make a meal out of it, you go around saying it’s murder . . . he might just do that.’

  ‘But he hasn’t?’

  ‘Not yet. But if he wants the case . . . and if he wants an opportunity to shaft you . . .?’

  Stilton shrugged the sentence into inconclusion.

  ‘OK. I take your meaning. I’ve made an enemy.’

  ‘You’ve a knack for that. The missis isn’t too keen on you either.’

  This sounded to Troy like a complete non-sequitur. He wasn’t sure whether Walter had changed the subject or not.

  ‘Was it something I said?’ knowing full well it was everything he said.

  ‘No. I don’t think there’s a thing you could have said to please her, less you said it in a cockney accent. No . . . forget I spoke . . . think nothing of it . . . she never has a good word to say about anyone who courts our Kitty.’

  ‘Courts?’

  ‘The missis’s word, not mine, but while we’re about it, there is one other thing.’

  ‘There is?’

  ‘What are your intentions towards my daughter?’

  Troy felt socked, blind-sided, sucker-punched.

  ‘I . . . er . . .’

  ‘Only jokin’ lad.’

  A big walrus-faced grin, a sip of ale, the glass set down again. Another fringe of white foam.

  ‘But if you do go up against Steerforth. Keep her out of it. Her career matters to her. As I’d hope you’ve noticed.’

  And now he wasn’t joking, and it dawned on Troy that they had at last reached the real reason for this off-the-manor bit-of-a-chat.

  § 118

  Spinetti showed Rod and Billy the room he was sharing. Among his room-mates was the man who pinched bowls of porridge at breakfast. The first thing they noticed was the smell. Faintly mouldy wafting around the door and out into the corridor. The second thing they noticed was the source. The window sills were crowded with what appeared to be abstract sculptures, blobby loopy and, to the undiscerning eye, formless.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Billy. ‘It’s never . . .’

  He poked a finger into the nearest ‘statue’.

  ‘It is. It’s . . . porridge!’

  ‘Told you so,’ Spinetti said. ‘A nutter, a bona fide nutter.’

  Rod leaned in a little and sniffed.

  ‘You know in Scotland they’re rumoured to keep the stuff for days. Make it in advance and store it . . . rather like making bread.’

  ‘This ain’t been here days,’ Spinetti said. ‘I reckon Schwitters made some of these weeks ago.’

  ‘Is that his name?’ Rod asked.

  From the doorway Kornfeld answered.

  ‘Kurt Schwitters. Surely you have heard of him? The Dadaist?’

  ‘Rings a bell,’ Rod replied. ‘Wasn’t he one who turned his house into a work of art?’

  ‘Yes. The Merzbau.’

  ‘Art, shmart! Merz shmerz!’ Billy said. ‘You toffs can dress it up in all the fancy words you like. It’s still just mouldy porridge.’

  ‘Then come with me and I will show you all something more appetising.’

  Kornfeld led them down the staircase, out into the grounds and across the lawns to the perimeter fence.

  ‘Patisserie day,’ he said to no one’s understanding.

  A stout old woman in a headscarf and a long, billowing skirt was approaching from the other side of the fence, carrying a large wicker basket on one arm. From their side a guard was approaching, rifle slung across his shoulder, his pace leisurely to the careless. He waved at the old woman as he passed, called out ‘Hello, Aunt Doris’ and got back ‘Hello, young Tony’ in return.

  When she drew level with Kornfeld she smiled hugely, whipped the teacloth off her basket and said, ‘I got everything you asked for. Two dozen eggs, three pounds of white flour, a pound of raisins and a bag of mixed nuts. I’ve put the word out for marzipan, but it’ll take a while. Wasn’t much call for marzipan even before rationing. But I’ll do me best.’

  With each phrase an item was passed through the wire.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Kelly. If you would add it to my bill I’ll settle up at the end of the month.’

  ‘Whatever you say, Arthur. Your credit’s good with me.’

  She eased her weight into one hip momentarily and looked at the newcomers, each one clutching an item of contraband and feeling slightly baffled.

  ‘New boys are you? You like your grub, you lot, I must say. Talk about a sweet tooth. Well, can’t stand ’ere gabbin all day. Same time on Thursday Arthur.’

  She ambled off. In the distance the guard had reached the corner of the house and had turned around to slouch back their way.

  ‘I don’t believe this,’ Rod said. ‘Smuggling right under the guard’s nose?’

  ‘As you will have gathered, the boy is her nephew. But that is scarcely crucial. They none of them . . . what is that evocative English phrase . . . give a “toss”. Why should they? We trade honestly with the villagers.’

  ‘How? I mean how do you pay for it?’

  By cheque. Drawn on my account in Cambridge. King’s College still pays my salary. I haven’t been fired or suspended. Merely interned. Did you not bring your chequebook?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I did, but . . .’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Nothing. I just find it all a little odd.’

  ‘Oh it’s odd alright. But it keeps our patisserie in fresh ingredients. And since you have brought your chequebook, I’m sure that, if there was anything extra you wanted sent in, Mrs Kelly and her husband would be only too happy to oblige. Indeed, if there’s anything you want sent out, anything you don’t want Trench’s censors to read, I mean, that can be arranged too.’

  ‘Does Trench know about this?’

  Kornfeld shrugged.

  ‘I’ve no idea. But who would ever want to tell him?’ The guard passed them again, nodded, said a soft ‘Afternoon Mr Kornfeld’ and walked on.

  § 119

  Another day of routine police work, the simplicity of questions, brought Troy nothing. He might as well let Steerforth have the case of the Hit-and-Run Rabbi.

  One thing remained. He’d go to the funeral. He’d no idea why, but he would. Then he rationalised the impulse. He’d make it known he was a policeman. There was just a chance someone among the mourners would come up to him with a snippet of information. Murder, as Dorothy L. Sayers had put it, must advertise, however much Stilton wanted discretion.

  He rang George Bonham. Kolankiewicz had released the body, the coroner had read his report and delayed the inquest pending a report from Troy. The funeral must surely be imminent?

  ‘It’s tomorrow morning,’ George said. ‘I was planning on going meself I knew Izzy all me life.’

  ‘Would you let the family know we’ll both be there? It might yield something.’

  ‘Family? He was a widower, y’know. There’ll be his sisters and his daughter. I see Miriam and Martha from time to time. Doubt I’ve set eyes on the daughter since . . .’

  ‘Yes. I heard. A bit of a cow.’

  ‘Freddie? Have you ever been to a Jewish funeral?’

  He’d been to Freud’s, but he didn’t think that counted.

  ‘No.
I’ve been to a couple of brisses though. But . . . they can’t be that different can they?’

  § 120

  Somehow he’d got it into his head that it would be a small affair. Something to do with there being a war on, and something to do with Borg having next to no family. It wasn’t.

  They stood outside the House of Prayer in Mile End Sephardic Cemetery – the house itself was packed.

  Bonham whispered, ‘I been to do’s like this afore. You stand when they stand, sit when they sit and keep yer trap shut. Piece o’cake.’

  ‘George, I don’t think we’re going to get the chance to sit.’

  ‘Whatever . . . when the blokes come out with the coffin, just fall in line.’

  ‘What about the women?’

  ‘They’ll do their own thing. A lot of it’ll be blokes only.’

  ‘I thought you said Borg only had a daughter.’

  ‘There’ll be some bloke doin’ the doins at the graveside, bound to be.’

  Troy found no opportunity to talk to anyone. He’d anticipated too much, that it might be just a little like a Church of England funeral – and he’d managed to avoid those since childhood – guests and mourners, greetings and handshakes, and what Bonham probably called ‘a-bit-of-a-do’ afterwards. It wasn’t. It was austere – not a wreath or bunch of flowers in sight – it was heart-rending, it was spare, and it was moving, and it was, to the uninitiated, often as not confusing. Troy lost track. There was so much to-ing and fro-ing. More ritual than he could keep up with. The immediate mourners emerged following the coffin. At the grave side a nephew read Kaddish.

  ‘To the departed whom we now remember, may peace and bliss be granted in the world of eternal life. There may they find grace and mercy before the Lord of heaven and earth. May their souls rejoice in that ineffable good which God has laid up for those that fear Him, and may their memory be a blessing unto those that cherish it.

  ‘May the Father of peace send peace to all troubled souls, and comfort all the bereaved among us. Amen.’

  A cousin gave a personal eulogy – testament to the character and scholarship of the deceased, and where the C of E would have a priest at the graveside there was not a rabbi in sight. Then the men were invited forward to shovel earth onto the coffin, Bonham and Troy included.

  ‘What?’ Troy whispered.

  ‘Just do as I do,’ Bonham whispered back, and Troy did as he was told, followed Bonham and tipped earth into Izzy Borg’s grave. Then back to the House of Prayer. Men and women behaving like separate tribes. He’d hardly set eyes on the women – the most immediate of Borg’s family – distant figures wrapped in black scarves, heads down. He’d sort of expected this, and he sort of hadn’t.

  When they emerged a second time, it was obvious even to Troy that they were into a new phase – now he could see the women clearly.

  Borg’s sisters were dumpy, grey-haired, identical, little women – obligations to grief and surrender to ritual competed with native capability as they now organised those around them. Who would drive back with whom, who would visit when. Just as well. His only descendant, a daughter of thirty or so, seemed aloof from it all. Only too happy to let others organise. Also, unlike her aunts, she was tall, dark and beautiful. When those who had seen her grow up chose to emphasise her brains, her defiance and her much-vaunted indifference to faith and tribe, they almost always forgot to tell him she was tall, dark and beautiful. George Bonham had called her ‘a difficult little girl’, ‘too clever by half and Stilton had said she was ‘the sort of girl who grows up to be the sort of woman bound to break her dad’s heart, if not every man’s heart.’

  Only slightly to Troy’s surprise she came right up to him.

  ‘Police at the Funeral. Isn’t that the title of a Marje Allingham novel? You didn’t tell me you were a policeman.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me you were Jewish.’

  She laughed out loud. Heads turned. She wiped the laugh back to a smile and restored just enough of the decorum of a funeral.

  ‘My real name’s Borg – but I suppose you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Poor excuse for a copper if I didn’t.’

  ‘And Isabella – Izzy – was a joke. I suppose it was at my father’s expense. Hardly seems in good taste now. I’m called Zette. And what do I call you? Troy?’

  Troy said, ‘Call me Sergeant Troy.’

  § 121

  Now she whispered.

  ‘This isn’t a courtesy call, is it?’

  ‘No. But it’s meant to look like one.’

  ‘You don’t think my father died in an accident at all, do you?’

  ‘I’m a detective with Scotland Yard Murder Squad. I don’t bother much with road accidents.’

  ‘Of course. But the East End thinks it was an accident. If you want them to go on thinking that . . . well, you’re at a Jewish funeral . . . gossip will spread from here faster than a bush telegraph . . . they’ll know in Bialystock by midnight, and Brooklyn by breakfast.’

  ‘Then perhaps we should stop whispering and go somewhere where we can talk.’

  ‘I’ll be at home this evening.’

  ‘I can’t come to Cambridge.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I may not be a cockney sparrow any longer, but I’m still a London girl. I have a top-floor flat overlooking the park. 112 Stanhope Place, just past Marble Arch. Shall we say eight o’clock?’

  ‘Shouldn’t you be here? Shouldn’t you be sitting shiv’ah at your father’s house. I thought shiv’ah lasted quite a while?’

  ‘Shiv’ah? What did you do? Look up “Jew” in an encyclopedia?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Troy thought she might laugh again, instead she said, ‘Do you think I give a damn? I want to be out of here before they start praying again. Be there at eight. I’ll provide the bacon and eggs, you bring the champagne.’

  § 122

  The lift was like a gilded cage. Two fat ladies could not have stood side by side. It whisked Troy to the top floor, jerked to a halt and disgorged him, Taittinger in hand, opposite the open door of Zette Borg’s ‘penthouse’ flat. He pushed gently at the door, a waft of scent across the room, a hint of steam and talcum from the bathroom, a wireless softly airing a Benny Goodman Concert – Helen Forrest crooning ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’ a little too jauntily.

  The sitting room faced south-west, and from this height Troy had a clear view above the treetops across Hyde Park. It was light, it would be light for a couple of hours. It was, he thought, a flat chosen for sunsets. Perhaps sunset was what Zette had in mind.

  An arm snaked around his waist. The waft of scent grew stronger with the lips pressed to the back of his neck, the chin resting on his shoulder. He knew the fragrance – his sisters had used it for years now – Indiscret by Lucien Lelong. It summed up their joint character, or at least would do so until the advent of a scent called Who Gives A Damn?

  ‘I know what you’re thinking.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘You’re thinking Lindfors has set me up in a love-nest.’

  Which was exactly what Troy was thinking.

  ‘I’m not his only one, you know. He likes clever women. He’s had affairs with most of his female staff.’

  ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘Nope. Sauce for the goose. Just so long as I’m numero uno, as long as I don’t find some other woman’s knickers in the laundry basket . . . I couldn’t give a damn.’

  Her head left his shoulder, she turned her back and said, ‘Zip me up, Troy.’

  She was wearing a Schiaparelli trouser-dress, the sort of thing Marlene Dietrich always seemed to be wearing when there was a photographer around. The trousers billowed from waist to ankle, the top clung to her like a second, simple black skin. The end of the zip was all but in the cleft of her buttocks – a line of white flesh peeping through black silk, from neck to arse – no knickers, no bra.

  ‘Don’t be shy, Troy.’

  He yanked it up, was about to take a pace backward when
one hand came over her shoulder and pointed at her spine.

  ‘Oh no, you don’t get off that lightly. Kiss.’

  He kissed.

  ‘You know,’ he said into the scent and the flesh of her backbone. ‘I rather thought you told me not to make plans.’

  ‘Who’s planning anything? I’ve nothing planned beyond midnight. Now – you did remember the champagne?’

  ‘Next to your gramophone, well chilled.’

  ‘How do you manage to chill champagne at this time of year?’

  ‘You plan ahead. You lower a bucket of water into the coalhole outside your house and dunk the champagne in it for as long as you can. Then you wrap it in last night’s newspaper, jump in a cab and get here as fast as you can.’

  ‘Supposing the coalman calls?’

  § 123

  She had pinched his shirt. Troy wandered around in trousers, sockless. Zette stood at the stove scrambling eggs and crisping bacon. All he’d had to do was pop the cork on the champagne while it was still cold.

  It was a sparse flat, close to bare. Unengaging shades of cream. Chunky leather furniture. Immaculate lines and surfaces. Bland watercolours that looked as though they’d been acquired as a job lot after Huntley & Palmer had used them on biscuit tins. Everything in it cost, but also everything in it told you no one lived there. It was like being in a hotel. Troy pulled open a drawer in the sideboard half-expecting a Gideon bible – it was empty – opened a cupboard next to the fireplace – that was empty too. How long did you have to spend somewhere before you wanted to put your mark on it, to introduce some personal object, some well-read book, some framed photograph of some loved one? It struck Troy that this was the opposite of all those Jewish homes he and Walter Stilton had invaded this summer – they were crammed with memories, stuffed with the signifying junk of life – this flat was stripped of them. How long did you have to spend somewhere . . . how long would you spend dressing up, all that Lelong and Schiaparelli, knowing you would all but rip it off in minutes?