‘And he’s pimping Lulu to Kennedy?’
‘She’s useful too,’ David admitted.
‘We’re all either useful or not useful – is that it?’
‘Don’t be impertinent, Verity. It doesn’t suit you. If the Party . . .’
She interrupted him again. ‘So you’re planning to blackmail Kennedy?’
Her face must have shown her disgust because he replied, almost defensively, ‘Not for money but because we need to influence him. In fact, that’s what we want you to do. Go to him and tell him that he has been photographed in delicto flagrante with Lulu and, if he doesn’t want the pictures to be sent to every newspaper in Fleet Street, he has to co-operate with us.’
‘But he hasn’t been photographed in bed with Lulu, has he?’
David nodded.
‘He has! That’s awful. No! I can’t possibly do that,’ she said without hesitation.
‘Why on earth not?’ He seemed genuinely surprised.
‘Because I’m not a blackmailer – because blackmail’s a crime and because I won’t do it. Is that enough?’
David was pensive. ‘I take it you want to marry that man of yours?’
‘Edward? You know I do.’ It was as though someone had made her swallow a cold sponge.
‘Well then, you won’t want me to show him the photographs we have of you and Leonard Bladon, will you?’ Bladon was the good-looking young doctor who ran the clinic where Verity had convalesced from TB the previous summer.
‘What photographs?’ she demanded in a low voice. ‘There are no photographs.’
‘There could be. We have skills in that direction . . .’ David replied.
Lulu looked down at Jack Kennedy and smiled. ‘Was that good?’ she inquired. She compared him mentally to his father. She didn’t mind old men in general. She had made love to many of them. For the most part, what they lacked in physical prowess and bodily beauty they made up for by being gentle and imaginative. Joe Kennedy had not been gentle and she had hated having to service him – she could not call it ‘love-making’. He was ugly – but that was not his fault – and he smelt bad but it was the way he liked smacking her about which frightened and disgusted her. His son had that same cold look in his eyes but he was so charming. His smile was irresistible even if it was as superficial as the skin on a peach. Why had she thought of peaches? Was it the faint blur of hair on his skin or the taste of his flesh? She licked her lips in anticipation but there was to be no second bout. Jack raised himself, pushing her off him none too gently. Perhaps, when he was an old man, he too would be cruel, she thought. His father had provided him with the worst possible example. How could his son ever believe in a lasting relationship with a woman based on mutual respect?
‘Why do you have to go?’ she whined, picking herself up from the floor where she had fallen among the tangled bedclothes.
‘Why is it so fucking cold in this godforsaken country?’ Jack complained, wrapping a bathrobe round him.
‘Don’t cover yourself up,’ she said, sinking back on the bed. ‘I like looking at you naked. When you’re cold, the fur on your stomach stands up and your skin is covered in goose bumps.’
‘Damn it, I don’t want to go but I have to make an appearance at some dance this evening. I hate them – those dumb English girls with their cold eyes and small breasts. And their gowns . . . Isn’t there a decent dressmaker in the whole of London?’
‘But that won’t stop you fucking one of them,’ Lulu said viciously.
‘Gently, gently,’ he chided her. ‘Why, my little cat, I do believe you’re jealous. Can a whore be jealous?’
‘You treat me like shit, just like your father . . .’
She stopped, realizing that she had gone too far. ‘I only meant . . .’
He turned and looked at her with such loathing that she was suddenly frightened.
‘You little bitch!’ he shouted, his voice taut with anger. ‘Get out of here, will you, before I throw you out. Here . . .’ He threw some money on the bed.
‘Please, Jack, I’m sorry. I don’t want . . . I didn’t mean . . .’
‘I expect to find the room empty when I get out of the shower. Go out the back way. I don’t want anyone to think I need women like you.’
He went into the bathroom and she heard the water beat against the shower curtain. Hurriedly, she threw on her clothes and glanced in the mirror. Tears had streaked her face with mascara. She wiped away the worst of the mess and then – leaving the money on the bed but taking something from the bedside table – she slipped out of the room. She crept down the back stairs and into Prince’s Gate believing that no one had seen her, but she was wrong.
11
‘This is one hell of a mess. The press are baying for my blood and I’ve had the devil of a time trying to keep the Kennedy connection out of the papers.’
‘How are the Astors taking it, Chief Inspector?’ Edward asked.
‘None too well, as you can imagine.’
‘Have you arrested Dr Channing?’
‘On what grounds? The girl’s body was found in his house but she wasn’t murdered there and he didn’t put it there.’
‘Can you be sure – absolutely sure?’
‘The post-mortem shows she had been dead several hours when she was found and there was no blood on the carpet. The girl was a whore and Channing had been told to put her in Kennedy’s way.’
‘Told by whom?’
‘He’s not saying. I think he fears for his life and I can’t say I blame him.’
‘Kennedy took the bait?’
‘The police constable on guard outside the residence says he saw her enter the building last night but didn’t see her leave. She must have left through the back – if she did leave alive.’
‘You think Kennedy may have killed her in the residence? Surely not! He could hardly keep that a secret.’
‘I haven’t told you the worst of it. The Ambassador wasn’t at home last night. He was at a public dinner until late.’
‘So if Joe wasn’t entertaining Lulu, who was?’
‘Jack Kennedy. She had his watch in her bag. It was found underneath the body.’
‘How do you know it’s his watch?’
‘It’s a very expensive watch and there’s an inscription engraved on the back – “From J.P.K. to J.F.K. with love May 29 1938”.’
‘That’s Jack’s birthday?’
‘Yes, his twenty-first.’
‘Have you questioned him?’
‘Not yet. It’s a damnable business. The embassy and the residence are both United States territory. We can’t search them without an invitation – so far we’ve had none – and the Foreign Office has told us to back off.’
‘May I see the photographs again?’ Pride threw them across the desk. ‘Channing refuses to say who told him to introduce Lulu to the Ambassador?’ Edward mused as he examined them.
‘He does. Why? Have you any ideas on that score?’
‘Verity told me that she was introduced to Lulu at a local Party meeting.’
‘Introduced to her by whom?’ The Chief Inspector sat up in his chair.
‘David Griffiths-Jones. We have both known him for a long time off and on. He was in Spain when Verity was there. He’s a top Communist Party official. A nasty piece of work – Liddell has quite a file on him.’
‘Of course! You and he quarrelled over . . .’ He saw Edward’s face and realized he was on sensitive ground. Hastily, he changed the subject. ‘So what might Griffiths-Jones want with Kennedy?’
‘You’ll have to ask him that but both Verity and I thought he might be – you know . . .’
‘Trying to trap him – photograph him with the girl and then blackmail him?’
‘Something like that,’ Edward agreed drily.
‘That is a lead. Thank you, Lord Edward. I knew I was right to involve you despite what Voss said.’
Edward grunted. ‘The Inspector doesn’t like me and I can understand why. Who
needs some amateur sleuth muddling up a perfectly good investigation?’
‘Only it isn’t a perfectly good investigation. Where are we now?’ Pride leant back in his chair and closed his eyes. ‘Let me see. We have three murders involving the Kennedy family. Is one of them a murderer? Or is it someone who wants to discredit them at a crucial moment in Britain’s relations with the US? The Communist Party, for instance.’
‘And the other significant point is that all three victims were moved somewhere else after they were murdered.’
‘Yes, Wintringham and Farrell were left where one of the Kennedy family would find the body. On the other hand, the girl was moved away from the Kennedy residence where she was last seen and possibly murdered and taken to somewhere she had been staying – the Astor estate.’
‘Yes,’ Edward agreed, ‘she was one victim who wasn’t dumped in a place a Kennedy would find her but was actually moved so it didn’t implicate the family.’
‘True, but the murderer didn’t bother to remove Jack’s watch – assuming he didn’t plant it on her. And Kennedy senior was always likely to be implicated. Quite a few people may have known or guessed what was going on. I think we need to concentrate on Cliveden. Only a handful of people saw Lulu being introduced to Kennedy by Channing.’
‘Where did she live, by the way?’ Edward asked.
‘She had a small flat in Clapham. Apparently she liked to pretend that she lived in Kensington but that was just fantasy.’
‘That was what Verity thought. She had this double-barrelled name but her vowels didn’t support her pretensions. And Channing – what have you found out about him, Chief Inspector?’
‘He’s not a doctor but he is an osteopath who has developed a practice – if you can call it that – dispensing homeopathic medicines to the desperate or deluded – mostly, but by no means exclusively, women.’
‘Why women in particular?’
‘He also offers beauty treatments and dispenses slimming pills.’
‘And that’s not illegal?’
‘Apparently not – at least not until someone complains of being defrauded or poisoned. I think he has performed an abortion or two but I don’t have the evidence yet. By the way – it’s probably not relevant – but he’s homosexual.’
‘I wonder if he knew Farrell?’
‘That occurred to me but so far we haven’t turned up any evidence that he did,’ Pride said.
‘It’s lucky for him that the murderer favoured knives not poison.’ Edward was looking at the photographs of the murdered girl. ‘She was stabbed in the side of the neck like the others . . .’
‘But in her case the murder weapon was removed. There was no knife.’
‘But didn’t the post-mortem show she had been stabbed with a similar weapon to the one used on Wintringham and Farrell?’
‘It did,’ Pride confirmed. ‘Before I interview Griffiths-Jones – you don’t know where he lives, do you . . .?’ Edward shook his head. ‘I must speak to Miss Browne. Presumably you know where she is.’
‘She’s waiting outside,’ he said coolly.
Verity had been kicking her heels for a full thirty minutes before Pride came through from his office pretending – she thought – to be unaware that she had been left waiting for his summons. He was apologetic and Edward looked guilty which assuaged her anger.
‘We’ve been talking about Lulu,’ Edward said. ‘Here, have a look at these.’ He passed her the photographs.
As she examined them Verity felt her eyes mist over. She hated sentiment and she hadn’t liked Lulu but to see this young girl – so alive at Cliveden, flaunting her sex appeal – reduced to dead matter by some arrogant, brutal man made her angry and scared. No one had said it but this could have been her. There was too much death in her life. It made her sick to the stomach.
‘Only a man could have been so callous,’ she said at last.
‘I’m inclined to agree,’ Pride nodded. ‘Do you know anything about her background?’
‘No, you’ll have to ask David Griffiths-Jones. He knew her and probably employed her.’
‘Employed her . . .?’
‘Yes, Chief Inspector.’ She found that, in her mood of despair and disgust, she had no feelings of loyalty to David. He used people and did not care very much what happened to them. ‘I believe they may have been lovers though I suppose you could say that she spread her favours widely.’
‘But at his direction?’
‘Possibly. She called herself Lucinda Arbuthnot-Grey but I’m sure that wasn’t her real name. She just liked sounding posh but her vowels gave her away.’
‘We think her real name was Mary Potts.’
‘No wonder she wanted to change it,’ Edward put in.
‘I don’t know why you say that,’ Verity snapped. ‘I would describe her as an East End girl trying to make her way in the world using her only asset – her body.’
‘She was a whore,’ Pride said, scandalized.
‘She was a woman in a nasty, cruel man’s world, Chief Inspector. She was a victim long before she was murdered.’
Pride looked at Edward and he lowered his gaze. Verity could still shock him but there was something in what she said. It was the men who pimped her – Channing and maybe David Griffiths-Jones – who were to blame for her ending up dead.
‘She wanted to ingratiate herself with people like the Astors,’ Verity continued unnecessarily, feeling that, in some small way, Edward had failed her.
‘You notice that once again there is no blood, V? She was murdered elsewhere and her body taken back to Cliveden.’
‘What does Channing say?’
‘He knows nothing about it, or says he doesn’t,’ Pride answered her, ‘and I’m inclined to believe him – at least as far as the murder is concerned.’
‘I think he might make an intelligent guess, though, at who the murderer could be,’ Edward added. ‘After all, he put her in the way of Joe Kennedy and her death must be related to that in some way. If I were him, I’d be worried.’
‘Well, I shall be questioning the gentleman again in due course,’ Pride said grimly. ‘If he knows anything, we’ll sweat it out of him.’ He hesitated. ‘Could you tell me who else was at the meeting you went to, Miss Browne, in addition to Mr Griffiths-Jones and Miss Arbuthnot-Grey?’ He asked the question blandly enough but it was intended as a test and Verity knew it.
She chewed her lower lip, wondering whether she would be betraying her comrades if she volunteered their names. On the one hand, the police were generally considered to be the enemy – the instrument of government. On the other, this was a murder case and there was nothing secret or illegal about a meeting of Party members.
‘I don’t know that it is particularly relevant, but there is no reason why I shouldn’t tell you provided you give me your word that it won’t result in anyone being harassed for political reasons.’
‘I give you my word,’ Pride said without hesitation.
‘Well, there were about fifteen of us. I can’t remember everyone but no doubt I could get a list if you persuaded me that it was absolutely necessary.’
‘Was there a special reason why you went to the meeting?’
‘It was a normal local gathering of Party members and I’ve missed so many of them as a result of being away so much. But yes, there was a reason why I went to that particular meeting. I wanted to hear a friend of mine speak. He was fighting in Spain when I was there – an Italian – Fernando Ruffino.’
‘I thought the Italians support General Franco,’ Pride said, puzzled.
‘Mussolini and the Fascists do, of course, but there were about five thousand Italian anti-Fascists in Spain fighting for the Republic.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ Edward said.
‘To be honest, they weren’t very effective because they quarrelled among themselves so much.’ Feeling disloyal, she added, ‘But Fernando was as brave as a lion. He was wounded and I never saw him again until the other night.
He spoke very well about the fight against Fascism in Italy.’
‘Who else was at the meeting?’ Pride pressed her.
‘The District Secretary, George Castle, and his wife, Mary. Harold Knight – the local Party treasurer. Danny O’Rourke – I hear you’ve arrested him . . .?’
‘The IRA man – yes, he was being held on suspicion of being involved in the bombings but we’ve had to let him go. You don’t approve of the IRA killing innocent civilians, I presume?’ Pride said grimly.
‘Of course I don’t, nor would any self-respecting Party member. We’re not terrorists, you know, Chief Inspector,’ Verity said wearily. ‘We believe in social justice. Isn’t that what you believe in?’
Pride did not answer but looked sceptical. ‘Anyone else you remember?’
‘There were some young people, some students. A girl called Alice Paling and a spotty youth – I think his name was Leonard Baskin. I think Alice was a friend of Danny’s but,’ she added hastily, ‘I’m quite sure she wouldn’t have known about Danny’s links with the IRA – assuming he had any – let alone been involved. She’s English for one thing.’ She caught Edward and the Chief Inspector exchanging a sceptical glance and it made her angry. ‘Apart perhaps from Danny, they are all good, honest, patriotic citizens and I insist you don’t assume that being a Communist makes you a criminal.’
Pride snorted as though he wasn’t convinced but said politely, ‘That’s very helpful, Miss Browne. I must admit I can’t see anyone other than Mr Griffiths-Jones having any links with Miss Arbuthnot-Grey’s murder but we’ll poke about and see if we turn up anything.’
Verity looked embarrassed. ‘Chief Inspector – although, as I say, none of us at the meeting have anything to hide I’d be grateful if – when you talk to David, Mr Griffiths-Jones – you’ll keep my name out of it. I think he might misunderstand . . .’
‘Don’t worry,’ Pride said soothingly. ‘He’ll not hear your name from me, I promise you.’
On the way back to Cranmer Court in a taxi – her mind still running on her decision to leave the Party – Verity said suddenly, almost as though she were arguing with herself, ‘I think I have known for some time but couldn’t admit it that I’m not what David would call a Communist. I don’t believe in the dictatorship of the proletariat, which appears to mean unquestioning obedience to Comrade Stalin. It seems one can’t take an independent line any more. I mean, if you disagree with anything the Party tells you, then you are a “deviationist” and can be “liquidated”. I hate all the jargon that prevents one understanding what the real truth is. I don’t believe in – I don’t even understand – all the “isms” David spouts – “formalism”, “sectarianism”, “reformism”, “social chauvinism”, “socialist realism”, “social democratism” . . . I just believe that children should not be allowed to starve in a wealthy country like ours, that workers should have rights and that capitalism is heartless.’
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