by Joan Lock
Typical, thought Best. They jam our streets when it’s fine and desert us when we need them most. Finally, he resorted to extreme, life-threatening measures. When the next unoccupied growler happened along he jumped out into the road in front of it, arms held aloft in the approved police fashion and blowing a whistle at the same time. The cabbie, who saw him only at the last minute, was forced to bring his horse to a rearing, shuddering halt.
‘You stupid bastard!’ he yelled. ‘You could have killed us both!’
The worst of his subsequent oaths grudgingly faded when Best displayed his warrant card, declared that they were on police business, and demanded he take them to Bertrand’s house in Notting Hill, and then, if necessary, to the City Road Basin. Cabbies depended on the police for their licences and swearing was an offence for which they could be banned.
In such a pea-souper, the cabbie needed all the help he could get. Smith took the first turn carrying the flare aloft. At first he walked several yards ahead but soon had to close the gap when the fog grew even thicker and their crawl slowed down almost to a stumbling halt in that soundless world. The sulphurous, sooty air was almost suffocating, reaching into their mouths and noses and making their eyes weep.
They began to move a little faster once they reached the wider, better lit Uxbridge Road where light from the odd flare approaching from the other direction also helped them keep to their own side of the road.
When Grealey stepped towards her so menacingly, Helen didn’t hesitate. She turned and ran – straight into the blackness of the tall warehouse which loomed behind her. At first, she fled wildly and blindly into the void but, as her eyes adjusted, she could see that she was in a wide central aisle. Towers of crates, boxes and barrels rose on both sides. She dodged down one of the side paths leading from the aisle and stood quite still, trying to get her breath and quieten her pounding heart.
Grealey had been less lucky in his progress. She had heard metallic crashing noises behind her back, near the entrance to the warehouse, then the tinkle of breaking glass and Grealey’s furious curses. These had now ceased, to be replaced by angry mutterings, the faint rasp of matches being struck followed by brief flickerings of light and odd tinkling and scraping sounds. Then, more curses as the matches spluttered out and fingers were burned.
Suddenly, a cold hand clutched at her stomach. She realized what the noises were and just what Grealey was doing. He must have fallen over some lanterns near the entrance. Now he was trying to find one ready for use. Once he did so and it flared into life it would only be a matter of time, a very short space of time, before he found her. He need only wander down the central aisle swinging his light from right to left and there she would be – revealed, trapped, cowering beneath a stack of boxes, utterly defenceless. She must move!
Once through Notting Hill, Best took the flare. He was more likely to recognize the side street which led to Bertrand’s house. That was the theory. But the fog had grown denser again. The earlier ghostly railings of Hyde Park, with their gated landmarks, had now disappeared altogether. Without them, it was impossible to gauge where they were. Also gone were the dim shapes of the tall mansions to his left and any other traffic. They were in a blank tunnel.
Best was too distracted and frantic to notice what the horse manure was doing to his boots. Neither would he have cared. A fear was growing in him that made him want to cry out. Since Emma had died in his arms, he had never allowed himself to become so concerned about another person. Now, he felt the same despair of not being able to do anything to help the woman he knew he really cared for. And it was his fault! He should have seen to it that she was informed that Matilda was not the victim instead of waiting to tell her himself. What would he do if he was too late to save her! The tears blurring his vision were not entirely due to the stinging murk around him. Abruptly, the fog thinned enough for him to recognize the turnings. It was an omen!
When they reached Bertrand’s house, Best felt another surge of hope. Even in the yellow-grey gloom it was visible. Not only was it lit throughout, there was noisy talk and even shouts of laughter coming from within. At this time of night! Helen was there! That could be the only explanation.
Helen took off her shoes and began edging towards the side of the building, in the hope that she might reach a pathway parallel to the central aisle. Then she could hide behind a stack and, as Grealey passed, make her way back towards the entrance. If she didn’t, if this pathway were a dead end – she was done for. She sidled very slowly and quietly until the next match was struck then, under the cover of the noise Grealey was making with the lanterns, she moved faster. Grit from the floor dug into her feet and splinters from the rough wooden crates bit into her face and fingers. All at once, a wider and brighter light radiated down the central aisle and a shout of satisfaction echoed through the building. Grealey had lit his lantern and was coming for her.
It was an exuberant and excited Jacques Bertrand who opened the door to greet Best and Smith. ‘Come in, come in,’ he beckoned, as though it were the most normal thing in the world for two policemen to come calling in a dense fog well after midnight.
‘You will not believe who is here!’ he exclaimed jubilantly. ‘You just will not believe it. It is astonishing!’ He led his grimy and confused guests into his front parlour then stood back and extended his right arm with a flourish. Best’s heart sank. There stood a young man and woman.
The woman was not Helen.
As he struggled to control his disappointment, he realized he recognized her companion. It was the baby-faced young man he had seen only once before, briefly, at the meeting of the Regent’s Canal Disaster Committee. It was Eddie Van Ellen, the budding artist. The exquisitely pretty young woman also seemed vaguely familiar.
‘Matilda!’ announced Bertrand pushing her forward with great glee. ‘She is found.’
Best sat down with a thump. ‘So I see,’ he said, tonelessly. ‘So I see.’
‘Wait till we tell Helen!’ continued a euphoric Bertrand. ‘If only we could go to Holland Park right now,’ – he peered out of the window – ‘but it does not look possible …’
‘We could only get this far …’ explained a smiling Matilda.
‘She’s not there,’ interrupted Best bluntly.
Matilda was the first to sense that all was not well. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked nervously. ‘Where is she?’
‘We don’t know. She’s missing.’ He looked at this pretty, happy young woman in the ice-blue silk gown, and felt the urge to hurt her. ‘She went looking for you,’ he said coldly, ‘and now she’s gone. She may be in great danger.’
He had intended to disturb her, but even Best was startled by the way Matilda’s face instantly crumpled like that of a child from whom a favourite toy has been seized. A cry of utmost anguish issued from her throat.
There was no point in trying to hide her movements now. Helen knew she must move fast. Her left foot came down on something sharp and pointed and she managed only to half-stifle the cry of pain before hobbling on frantically. The swinging light of Grealey’s lantern grew brighter – then dimmed again as he inspected each side track. But always growing brighter. Soon it would be illuminating her. She must go faster.
The impact almost knocked her out. Her left side had crashed into something extremely solid. Desperately she felt upwards, to the sides and all around. There was no break in it. It was the warehouse wall. There was no gap in the stacks of merchandise on either side before her. That meant there was no pathway alongside the wall. That meant she was trapped.
Thank goodness the waiting cab was a four-wheeler so there was room enough for Matilda, Van Ellen and Bertrand, who insisted on joining in the hunt for Helen. Best usually hated having ‘civvies’ along, with their unreliable reactions. But he might learn something from them as to where else Helen might have gone and there were more pairs of hands for carrying extra flares.
They were back on the Uxbridge Road heading for Marble Arch when Smith vo
iced a thought which had already occurred to Best, but been dismissed, ‘Shouldn’t we try to find a police station and send an electric telegraph to the police station closest to City Road?’
Best shook his head, gesturing towards the enveloping fog which had closed in even more tightly. ‘Look, it’s getting worse. Notting Hill station is back there, the next is Marylebone, and if we get off the main road again, what chance have we of finding it again quickly – never mind the police station? Then we would waste time explaining and writing the telegraph and there may not be a line clear …’ He shook his head. ‘We’ll be better off sticking to the main roads and going as fast as we can.’
He wished he was as sure as he sounded. He handed his flare to the young Van Ellen, admonished the driver to get a move on, and weighed into a tearful Matilda and an agitated Bertrand.
He learned of other places where Helen might have gone. Alas none of them very near nor very likely. He also learned that Eddie and Matilda had eloped to Gretna Green, then stayed in Scotland while Eddie painted Matilda in the Highlands, both unaware of the furore they were causing. She had told Mrs Briggs that she was going to Pinner for a long stay and couldn’t understand why she became worried. Best thought this was not the time to tell her that their housekeeper didn’t always listen carefully to her employers. Once married, Matilda had written to Helen in Paris but by then she must have left. Bertrand’s closeness with Helen was also explained when, in the course of conversation, he had shrugged and said simply, ‘She is my cousin.’ Best wanted to cry.
Helen struggled to overcome her panic and began to feel around the crate in front of her. Maybe there was a way onto the top of the stack. The light, only two stacks away now, briefly lit what should have been the next crate up but she could see nothing. Grealey’s mutterings became louder.
She pulled herself up to the first side strut and felt for the top of the crate. It stood proud, forming a ledge! A wide ledge. She blessed all that childhood tree-climbing and the lugging around of huge canvases which had strengthened her arms.
She gathered all her strength to haul herself upwards again. Her elbows were on the top of the crate, another haul would do it. Would she have the strength? Damn these skirts, tangling around her legs and adding such weight to her body. She pushed herself up, expecting at any moment to come up against the next crate in the stack. But so far, there was none. Now she was leaning forward half on and half off the crate, panting and exhausted, without the strength for the final heave. A burst of light all around her made her realize that it must be over, she was done for. She awaited her fate.
Miraculously, the light faded again with retreating footsteps. Grealey was in the path behind her – the light had come through the sides of the stack. She still had a chance. The knowledge gave her the necessary strength. She heaved herself onto the top of the crate. Once there, the intermittent flashes of light revealed what she had hoped for all along. There was a path ahead. It had been blocked only by the crate she was now on.
She turned around and began lowering herself down the other side – feeling for the first strut with her toes, found it then lowered her right leg in search of the second strut. But her fingers began to lose their grip, her right leg was swinging about – destroying her balance. To save herself she tried to jump, but tumbled awkwardly and noisily onto the hard ground, her foot twisting beneath her.
There was a yell of triumph from among the merchandise stacks to her right, ‘Oh, so there you are my beauty!’
Grealey was running towards her, the light jumping about like approaching flames from hell. Helen scrambled to her feet, crying out with pain from her right ankle as she did so. She tried to move forward but her skirt was caught. She ripped away at the waist fastenings, got free as Grealey entered the pathway out of which she had climbed! She ran forward blindly. She might still escape. Then something solid, very solid, smashed into her face and she fell into a deep, deep void.
They were making better progress along Oxford Street, where the lighting was more abundant. But not enough for Best. ‘For God’s sake man, hurry!’ he shouted at the driver. ‘You must go faster!’ The man was trying his best, caught up as he now was in the urgency of their quest. But abandoned vehicles kept looming into his path causing the horses to rear in fright and veer into the pavement.
At last they were at Tottenham Court Road where they turned north. Best wasn’t sure it was the most direct route but probably the simplest.
Grealey, made gargoyle-like by the lantern on the floor beneath him, stood over a crumpled Helen and complained aggressively, ‘Why did you run like that you stupid woman! I told you I wouldn’t hurt you, didn’t I? What d’you think I am?’ He laughed and reached down towards her, removing his filthy neckerchief with his other hand as he did so. She tried to twist away but came up against the warehouse wall. ‘Don’t be so stupid!’ he exclaimed angrily. ‘You can’t get away!’
She must be seeing double. Looming above Grealey was another, taller figure, holding something aloft.
‘Thank God!’ she cried. ‘Oh, thank God!’ She gasped with relief – just as the club in the traffic manager’s hand smashed down on Sam Grealey’s skull.
They had reached the City Road when one of the horses stumbled into an abandoned cartwheel and became lame, slowing down the carriage even more. But it made no difference. Best was now running ahead, sobbing as he ran, knowing in his heart he must be too late. He had not been able to save the first woman he loved, why should he be able to save this one?
A wiry but strong hand was pushing Helen’s face down towards the water.
‘You were stupid to come here,’ snarled Thornley, ‘very, very stupid. You don’t know your way around and, in the dark, you stumbled into the water and drowned – running away from Grealey.’ His grip on her head tightened. Helen struggled against his forcing hand, but it was useless. He gave a final push and her face hit the filthy, evil-smelling water and went beneath. Now, the water was her eyes, her mouth, her nose. Choking, gurgling, she still struggled, fighting desperately for her life. As her world again descended into darkness she wondered why dying had to be so noisy – all that shouting – and why was she being pulled and shaken about so much? Wasn’t it supposed to be peaceful?
Chapter Nineteen
It was peaceful now. Deathly quiet in fact. Slowly, Helen ventured to open her eyes just a little, then promptly shut them again. The light increased the thudding pain radiating from the back of her head.
After a while, she tried again. When they were almost fully open a man’s hand came into view – it was coming towards her! She screamed.
The hand grasped hers. ‘It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s only me.’ She squinted dazedly into Best’s warm, greeny-grey eyes. ‘You’re safe. You’re at home in bed now.’ He carried her hand up to his cheek. ‘I won’t let anything happen to you ever again.’
As the mental mists cleared she became angry. ‘Where were you?’ she complained, unreasoningly.
‘Trying to reach you as quickly as we could.’
‘We?’
He hesitated, looking up to the other side of the bed. ‘There is someone here to see you.’
A smiling Matilda swam into Helen’s view. She cried out again but, this time, with sheer joy.
‘She taunted me,’ claimed Thornley. ‘She led me on and then pushed me away and taunted me.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Best, to whom this excuse was very old. He thought it particularly unlikely to be true on this occasion. ‘I think you wanted her, a pretty, young girl, and she didn’t want you. It was as simple as that.’
Even in the cause of extracting a confession, Best felt in no mood to humour the man who had just tried to murder Helen.
‘It was an accident. I was angry at something she said and I just gave her a push.’
Best shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘It’s my word against hers.’
The man was unbelievable. ‘We
caught you, remember! And what about Grealey?’
‘He was attacking her.’
‘Oh, I see, you saved her. How gallant.’ Thornley tried to interrupt, but Best was really angry now. ‘And then there’s poor bloody Minchin! What had that man ever done to you?’
The traffic manager fell silent.
‘I’ll tell you what he did: he provided you with a useful scapegoat. You guessed he was under suspicion when we asked where he was. What better solution than to kill him and make it seem like a guilty suicide.’
Thornley’s lip curled. ‘Don’t be stupid. How could it be me, way up there?’
Best realized he was losing it. He should be making friends with the man, letting all the things he had done seem reasonable and understandable. Making him feel like he was the victim. But he just couldn’t.
‘Easily, it was your night off. The train got you there ahead of them …’ He had no proof of this. No wonder the man was looking implacable. Never mind Best thought to himself, I’ve got him anyway for the murder of Mary Elizabeth and the attempted murder of Helen and Grealey. But he might just get away with manslaughter for Mary Elizabeth.
‘We can prove you were there,’ he exclaimed suddenly. ‘You weren’t as careful as you think.’
The silence hung between the handsome Best and this gaunt and unattractive middle-aged man. Best knew that some murderers had confessed merely because they had the irresistible urge to put the police right, prove they were more clever. The silence grew. Ask me, thought Best. Ask me! If he did, he had him.