Chapter Twenty-four
‘Come in, come in,’ said Davison. ‘Where on earth have you been?’
‘Berkshire, Surrey and Hertfordshire,’ said Una, entering the elegant first-floor flat of the Albany.
‘Oh my, thank goodness you have returned to civilisation.’
‘It wasn’t quite as bad as that, but the worst thing is that I’ve got to go back to the country tomorrow.’
Davison led Una down the passage with its exquisite collection of engravings and portraits. Certainly, Davison had an eye for beauty; he also had a generous private income that enabled him to pursue and satisfy his interests.
‘Come and sit down. Would you like some tea?’
‘Yes, yes please.’
‘Now, tell me what you’ve been doing. I was beginning to wonder whether you had run off with a rich suitor.’
‘If only I could be so lucky. No, I’ve been on the trail of Mrs Christie.’
‘What did you discover? Have you got your scoop yet? I see the story is all over the papers again this morning.’
‘No, not yet. But I’m convinced I’m nearly there.’
‘Well, I want to hear all about it. Excuse me for a moment, won’t you,’ said Davison as he disappeared into the kitchen to make the tea.
Una took her seat in a dark maroon leather chair by the fire. She always loved visiting Davison at his set and often called by unannounced in the hope of finding him with a close friend. She had never met any of his associates; she was sure she would like them, given half the chance. In the past she had taken the opportunity, when Davison had briefly left the flat to post a letter or been called to the telephone, to scour his home for clues. Bureaux were searched, desks opened, letters read, but to no avail. Today, her attention was drawn to the pile of journals and newspapers on the table, an eclectic mix to say the least.
‘Interesting about the girl, isn’t it?’ called out Davison.
‘The girl?’
‘Yes, the one named as a “friend of the Jameses” this morning. Obviously, the one Colonel Christie has been involved with.’ Any concerns about keeping certain details secret from Davison now melted away.
‘Oh, you mean Miss Neele. I’ve been to see her already.’
A moment later, Davison appeared at the doorway. He was not carrying the tea tray.
‘What do you mean, you’ve been to see her? I thought she would be off limits.’
‘Oh yes, I expect she is. But I used a secret technique of mine.’
‘Let me guess what that is,’ said Davison, smirking.
‘Don’t be so underhand and beastly.’ Una laughed. ‘No, I simply pretended to be a cousin of Mrs Christie’s. She let me in and gave me some vital information.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I can’t tell you now, you’ll just have to wait for my scoop to appear. Now where’s my tea?’
‘Very well. But you’re not going to get away without telling me a few prize titbits.’
Una picked up the Express, and read the story about how the Surrey and Berkshire police forces had been foolish not to call in Scotland Yard. The Times focused on yet another unsuccessful search of the area around Newlands Corner, mostly led by a group of local men and the Guildford and Shere Beagles Hunt who had been asked to keep a special lookout. However, at the end of the first paragraph there was a fact that jumped out of the page, something that surely would be worth following up: apparently, before Mrs Christie disappeared the novelist had written a letter to her brother-in-law Campbell Christie and the postmark on the envelope was clearly defined as the SW1 postal district. Perhaps Davison would have a contact inside the Post Office; certainly there was no harm in asking.
‘So, tell me, where did you find Miss Neele?’ asked Davison, returning with the tea.
‘Just outside Rickmansworth, in Hertfordshire.’
‘I’m not sure I’ve ever been to Hertfordshire. Oh yes, I remember. Once, I had to attend a dreary weekend party at some awful house, an old friend of Hartford’s who had this enormous pile near St Albans. He told me that it would be worth meeting him, but it was one of the worst weekends of my life. One day I’ll tell you more about it.’
‘Well, once this is over I doubt if I’ll ever want to go there again.’
‘Really?’
‘It’s been a fascinating experience, not at all what I expected. But the most wonderful thing is I am sure that at last I have found my vocation.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it.’
‘I thought once I had given it a go I might tire of it rather, but it’s the opposite. I find it absolutely thrilling. Especially the coverage of crime. All those beastly murders. So fascinating.’
‘Are you sure? I had assumed you were just doing it as a way of finding a husband. Hardly territory where one would find a suitable man but as they say beggars can’t be choosers.’
Una’s laugh was loud and infectious and quite ridiculously high.
‘Please, quieten down, you’ll have my neighbours gossiping,’ said Davison.
‘It will be good to give them something to talk about. You need someone unsuitable in your life to make you a subject of idle chatter, don’t you think?’
‘The less said about that the better. Now, moving on. Tell me all about what you discovered.’
Una thought for a moment. She would, she decided, be quite selective in what she said; after all she didn’t want Davison to become annoyingly protective. She had a job to do and she needed to be free to do it without any interference.
‘Of course, the police were hopeless, totally uncooperative,’ said Una. ‘And so I had to find other ways to gather information.’
Davison looked doubtful. ‘Such as?’
‘Well, first of all I managed to talk my way into the Christies’ house, when the Colonel was out, thank goodness. I found a letter written to Mrs Christie from her sister—’
‘What do you mean you “found” a letter?’
‘Well – when I was in the house, I saw a letter which gave me quite a good deal of background on the affair.’
There was no disguising Davison’s horror. ‘I think I must have misunderstood you. You pushed your way into Colonel and Mrs Christie’s house? And then you stole a letter from them?’
‘I know, I know,’ she said, trying to make light of it. ‘But please don’t scold me. It was important. It was the only way. The letter gave me the name of Miss Neele. So you see I got that information a few days ago, and although I am sure I could have made a name for myself by selling that to the newspapers I decided to hold back in the hope that it might lead somewhere else.’
‘You know I cannot condone this, Una. You know what you did was against the law?’
‘The law! There are certain times when, well, when one has to be creative, don’t you think? Surely you’re not telling me your department has always acted within the confines of the law?’
‘That is entirely different,’ he said, his face reddening. ‘It’s done in the country’s best interests, in the name of national security.’
‘You can call it that if you like. But I know the kind of things that go on, the things the public never hear about. And, as you very well know, the morals do not always bear close inspection.’
Davison fell silent for a moment. ‘But you must take care, Una. I don’t want you to find yourself behind bars – or even worse no longer around to tell the tale. Promise me you’ll be careful.’
Una hesitated. She had her own rules for what being careful meant, but she wasn’t about to outline these to Davison. ‘I promise,’ she said.
‘And what did you discover from the letter?’
‘I found out that the Colonel had been having an affair with a Miss Nancy Neele. I thought she might be able to shed some light on the case and so I found my way, via a very chatty dressmaker, to the home of Miss Neele. That conversation led me to Miss Neele’s doctor, who I am sure knows a thing or two about the disappearance.’
‘What makes you so certain?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, let’s just say feminine intuition. I’ve another appointment with him tomorrow. Although he says I won’t be able to use his name, he promises to give me some background information on the case.’
‘This is all very fascinating, but I am not keen on you gadding about the country talking your way into strangers’ houses. You never know who you might meet.’
‘What, like a suitable husband, you mean?’
‘You may joke, Una, but I do feel protective of you. You do remember what I promised your father, don’t you? The conversation I had with him before he died?’
The sparkle faded from Una’s eyes and the smile disappeared from her face.
‘You know what I’m trying to say. Your father gave me the task of making sure you didn’t come to any harm. I would be failing in my duties if anything were to happen to you.’
‘Yes, I can see that. Thank you, Davison, said Una, reaching out to touch him lightly on the leg. He really was the sweetest of men.
‘So you must promise me not to do anything silly or foolhardy. No more rushing off to strange counties like Hertfordshire without so much as a word of warning.’
‘Very well,’ said Una, picking up The Times. ‘Now, tell me. Do you have any useful contacts inside the Post Office?
‘Why?’
Una filled him in on the story about the discovery of a letter that Mrs Christie was said to have posted to her brother-in-law, Campbell Christie, and which bore the postmark SW1.
‘So you think Mrs Christie came to London after her disappearance?’ said Davison.
‘Yes, or she gave it to one of her friends to post for her. Perhaps she had a secret life that she didn’t want her husband to know about?’
‘Why does everyone have to have a secret life? Can’t people be just decent and honest and straightforward?’
Una cast him a questioning glance. ‘I’d like to hear your own answer to that.’
‘Excuse me?’ said Davison. There was laughter in his voice, but it was, thought Una, the kind of laughter one used when one wanted to cover something up.
‘Your work, and all that goes with it,’ she said. ‘The deception, the lies, the deceit, the undercover nature of it all.’
‘Oh, that,’ said Davison, waving a hand in the air. ‘For a moment I thought you were referring to something else entirely.’
‘No, not at all,’ said Una, smiling. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. Anyway, I was wondering if you had any contacts with the central London Post Office system?’
‘We do, of course. But I’m not sure how they might help you in this matter.’
‘Neither am I,’ said Una. ‘That’s the problem. I’m not sure what to do next. I have a few leads to follow up. As I said, I am going back to Rickmansworth tomorrow. But after that, I feel I’ve come to rather a dead end. The police aren’t showing any signs that they will help me, and there is no way I can go back and see Miss Neele or Colonel Christie.’
‘Well, I can make a few discreet enquiries at the Post Office about the letter. I can certainly find out when it was franked. That much should be quite straightforward.’
‘That would be something, I suppose.’
‘But of course, no one would know who posted the letter apart from Mrs Christie, or, according to your rather twisted and degenerate mind, her secret friend.’
‘Talking of secret friends—’
‘Enough,’ said Davison, holding up his hand, his eyes sparkling. It was obvious that Una’s revelations about her rather unconventional investigative methods had not damaged their friendship. ‘I’ve warned you already not to approach this subject. No wonder you are suited to journalism: your mind is like . . . like something one does not refer to in polite conversation.’
‘Davison!’
The two burst into laughter, a laughter that rang out through the flat with such force that the delicate glass shards of Davison’s beloved Napoleon III chandelier began to tinkle with delight.
Chapter Twenty-five
Surely it would only be a matter of time before he cracked the case, thought Kenward. If he could just turn the screw on the Colonel a little bit more then he might be able to wring a confession out of him. It was all about the delicate application of psychological pressure: too little and the murderer wouldn’t feel the need to share any information, too much and he would shut like a limpet.
The last twenty-four hours had proved eventful for Kenward and his team at Surrey Constabulary headquarters. In the afternoon, two boys had reported that they had come across a tin under a bush near the place where Mrs Christie had abandoned her car. Inside the tin was a strange message: ‘Ask Candle Lanche. He knows more about the Silent Pool than . . . ’ He had asked his men to go through the local directories to check whether there was anyone of that name living in the vicinity, but they had drawn a blank. He had even passed it to one of the constables, Hughes, who he knew to be a crossword fiend. Could it be an anagram, he wondered?
After a couple of hours of playing about with the letters, Hughes had come up with a few half-baked suggestions, but finally Kenward had decided that the message was nothing more than a silly hoax. He suspected the two boys, Frederick Jones and Stanley Lane, who claimed they had found the tin, as being the perpetrators, but he couldn’t prove it. No doubt he could have questioned them further, but he didn’t want to waste any more time, because he had been called away from the station after the discovery of a shoe.
The item had been found by a member of the public out walking on the lower slopes of the Downs near Albury. Could it have belonged to Mrs Christie? If so, could there be other scraps of clothing near by? One of his men drove him to the site of the discovery, and although he had high hopes for the importance of this piece of potential evidence, when he arrived it was obvious that the shoe had been safely rotting away for some time. Then, later that night, just as he had been getting ready for bed, he heard a knock at the door. He opened it to see Hughes; he knew that the constable would not bother him at home unless it was important.
‘What is it?’ asked Kenward, eager to hear the news. ‘Oh yes, I suppose you had better come in.’
Kenward led him into the kitchen.
‘A call just came into the station. A body of a woman has been pulled out of the Basingstoke Canal.’
This was it. This was the breakthrough he had been waiting for.
‘What does she look like? Can you tell me?’
‘It’s difficult to say, sir. I haven’t seen the body yet, but I don’t suppose she’s the prettiest sight.’
‘Was she wearing clothes?’
‘Oh yes, indeed, sir,’ he said, turning the page of his notebook.
‘Can you say what kind of clothes she was wearing?’
‘I’m no expert in that regard, sir, but the witness said that she was a well-dressed lady.’
‘Where has the body been taken? The mortuary?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, what are we waiting for?’
Hughes squinted at Kenward’s dark blue wool dressing gown, which strained itself to contain his rotund form, and his green-and-white-striped pyjamas beneath.
‘Oh yes, of course,’ said Kenward, coughing, ‘I’ll just change my clothes.’
The door to the mortuary was opened by Dr Anderson, an elderly man who looked like he was only a step or two away from death himself. His skin had yellowed and thinned to the point where it appeared to be as insubstantial as the parchment of an ancient book. His back had bent double so he had difficulty in lifting his neck and meeting the gaze of the two policemen.
‘Come in, she’s inside on the slab,’ said the doctor in a matter-of-fact manner.
Kenward and Hughes followed him down a corridor to the back of the building. The bare room consisted of nothing more than a marble slab and a wooden shelf on which stood pieces of surgical equipment, metal dishes and glass jars of various sizes. The smell of preserving fluid hung in t
he air like some foul ghost.
‘There was no identification on her body and I don’t think a handbag of any description has been found near by,’ said Dr Anderson, reading from his notes.
Kenward approached the slab with a certain degree of nervousness, not because he was afraid of seeing a dead body – the sight of a corpse, no matter how decomposed, no longer shocked him – but because of the anticipation that rose within him. For a moment, before he felt ready to look over to study the face of the dead woman on the slab, he had to steady himself. There was, he knew, a bare light bulb hanging over the body, casting everything in the room in a clinical glare, but to him it looked as though the bulb was dimming. The periphery of his vision darkened, obscuring and restricting his sight to nothing but a shadowed tunnel.
‘Kenward, are you all right?’ someone said.
He was conscious of Dr Anderson by his side. He turned his head, but the room looked as though it had been upturned, like something from the Titanic. He felt a person take his arm and lower him into a chair. His head, he was aware, had been placed between his knees, but he felt a great straining around his middle and a dull pain in his heart. He took a series of deep breaths and gradually the world righted itself before his eyes. Yet the sight that greeted him – Anderson, ochred, tortoise-like, and crawling towards death – did not offer a great source of comfort.
‘Kenward? Kenward?’ said Anderson, monitoring his pulse. ‘You had us worried for a second.’
‘Just a funny turn. Sorry about that.’
‘Are you sure you want to do this now?’ asked Anderson. ‘Why not come back in the morning after you’ve had some rest?’
‘No, no, I’ve fully recovered,’ said Kenward, standing up from the chair. ‘No need to worry about me. It’s this lady here we are concerned with, who I very much hope—’
A Talent For Murder Page 17