The Riot

by Laura Wilson

  ‘So … eleven or thereabouts?’

  ‘Must have been a while after eleven, sir. I’d been clearing up for quite a time – we’d had a busy night of it. I was out at the back emptying some rubbish when I saw the car.’

  ‘So where was it?’

  ‘Driving down Australia Road, sir.’

  ‘Can you describe any of the people?’

  ‘Not really, sir. I’m pretty sure they were all men, but it was too dark to see what they looked like. But the colour’s either dark blue or black – I saw that when they went under a street lamp, and the first two letters of the registration – P and then F.’

  Stratton put down the receiver and sat at his desk trying to picture the car that had been parked outside the Rutherfords’ house. There’d hardly been any other cars in the street at the time. When he’d asked Rutherford how he’d got to April Scott’s, he’d said ‘I drove’, so presumably he’d left the same way he’d arrived and parked the car in the street outside the house. He jumped up and stuck his head out of the door. ‘Dunning!’

  The young constable appeared at the double. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Last night, the car outside the Rutherfords’ house – what sort was it?’

  ‘Bentley, sir. Dark blue one.’

  ‘Find out the model and registration of Rutherford’s car, would you?’

  ‘Yes, sir. And there was another phone call just now, sir. Woman called Gloria wants to speak to you. She was speaking from a public box – says it’s about the woman who got killed last night and it’s urgent and you know where to find her, sir.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The attic room was stifling and smelt of dusty fabric. There was dust, too, on the scratched Jacobean-style table and the petals of the faded plastic flowers on the mantelpiece. The smeared windows offered only a view of a series of gardens choked with rubbish and the backs of other houses, and the damp stains on the walls and ceiling suggested that you might need to put out more than one bucket when it rained. Gloria had made the effort to brighten the place up by tacking covers torn from Picturegoer magazine to the walls. Stratton looked round at images of Joan Collins, Kim Novak and Diana Dors. Do you copy the stars? he read. Then turn to page 12. I feel sorry for Johnnie Ray by the girl who sang with him. You’re so wrong about me says Ava Gardner. Inside, colour pictures of Laurie London, Dirk Bogarde and Doris Day.

  Gloria looked terrible. Chalk white, with blue-grey smudges beneath her eyes, she had her right arm in a sling. She must be right-handed, Stratton thought – the shaky attempt to add some glamour with a dash of red lipstick made her look like a ghoul that had forgotten to wipe its mouth.

  ‘They had to put stitches in,’ she said. ‘I was waiting for over an hour.’ Evidently realising what was on his mind, she added, ‘You’re not exactly an oil painting yourself.’

  ‘I know,’ said Stratton. ‘What was it you wanted to tell me?’

  ‘Do you know if Clinton’s all right?’

  ‘Clinton Etheridge?’

  ‘Yes. Do you know where he is?’

  ‘’Fraid not. You said it was urgent, Gloria – about a woman who got killed. What’s going on?’

  ‘I’m worried about him, that’s all.’

  ‘You’d better not be telling me you’ve brought me down here just for that, or—’

  ‘No, please.’ Gloria put a hand on his arm. Close to, she smelt stale and sickly. ‘I’m just worried about him, that’s all. I don’t know what’s happened, and I thought … I don’t know what I thought. And there is something about the woman last night. I never said when the copper asked me because I didn’t realise – well, no one did, did they? Only afterwards.’

  ‘Which woman are you talking about?’

  ‘Her in the garden. Can I have a cigarette?’

  ‘Here.’ Stratton took out his packet of Churchman’s and lit one for her, then one for himself. ‘What woman in the garden?’

  ‘You know,’ said Gloria, exhaling an impatient stream of smoke. ‘The dead one.’

  ‘How do you know about that?’

  ‘Bloody hell.’ Rolling her eyes at him, she added, ‘Everyone knows.’

  ‘Who’s everyone?’

  ‘Everyone in Colville Road, at any rate. Got eyes, haven’t they? I’ve got a friend lives next door to the house. She saw you lot in the garden. She said they put things round so you couldn’t see, but she got a good look before that, with all them lamps and stuff, and she said the woman’s frock was like something Alma Cogan would wear and you couldn’t miss it if you tried.’

  ‘And when did she tell you this?’

  ‘She didn’t. When I come out of the hospital I went down to Dot’s, the all-night caff on Westbourne Park Road.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go home?’

  Gloria sighed. ‘I was looking for Clinton. Didn’t find him, but I saw this girl I know, and she said she was down that way and my friend told her, and then she told me, and described the frock and everything, I knew it couldn’t be no one else. It’s that posh woman, Mrs Rutherford, who helped to organise the party. Clinton’s “important new friend”, you called her – he told me who she was after you’d gone.’

  ‘OK,’ said Stratton. ‘What about her?’

  ‘Well …’ Gloria’s confidence seemed to desert her and she subsided awkwardly onto the room’s single, sagging armchair, wincing as her right shoulder came into contact with the back. ‘I only found out about the party after you went to see Clinton. What with you talking about his new friend, and then I saw all them bottles out the back, I asked him straight out what was going on and he tells me that him and his friend on the council and Lady Muck are having a party and they’ve got all these politicians and famous people coming.’ She flicked ash peevishly at the floorboards. ‘I asked Clinton when he’d been planning to tell me about it, and he got the needle and said it wasn’t nothing to do with me and I’m not invited.’

  Interesting, thought Stratton, given that meeting the local flora and fauna was supposed to be the object of the exercise. At least, it was according to the Hon. Virginia and Mr Watson. Etheridge, clearly, had his own agenda, and it wasn’t one that involved Gloria.

  ‘So,’ she continued, dredging up the word with a sigh, ‘come the evening, I go out as usual, but after a couple of hours I thought I’d go and see. I mean, I was fed up – all this about his new friend and famous people … It’s like, my money’s good enough for him but I’m not, so he wants to go on the batter with a load of posh birds. Half of me’s thinking he’s pulling a fast one and he’s got something else going on, and I wanted to know what he was up to, see? He said he was just hustling and if it wasn’t for the fact he could get money out of this woman he wouldn’t have anything to do with her. Anyway, come half past ten I’d had enough, so I go down to Colville Road to see this woman for myself. There’s a party, like Clinton said, so I thought, I’m going in – why shouldn’t I?’

  ‘You didn’t notice all the disturbance?’

  Gloria shrugged. ‘More people about than usual, but no one give me any trouble and anyway, I wasn’t bothering about that, I just want to find out what Clinton’s up to, don’t I? So I get there, and there’s lots of people and music and I thought, well, he’s obviously having me on about all these politicians, because they wouldn’t …’ Here Gloria faltered and paid great attention to her cigarette.

  ‘We know there were drugs on the premises, Gloria. This is a murder inquiry – we’re not interested in anything else.’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ said Gloria. ‘Well, as soon as I went in the place I could tell they’d been smoking weed from the smell. Then I spot my friend Vicky who I work with—’

  ‘Vicky Allardice from Colville Terrace?’

  Gloria nodded. ‘You’ve met her. Anyway, she’s dancing with this fat bloke who’s mad keen to be her best friend, if you know what I mean, and she says he’s the MP for Hammersmith or somewhere. So I’ve asked her what she’s doing there and she says she was invited
– her and Terri and Rita and a couple of the other girls, and when I look round the room I can see some of their boyfriends as well. Anyway, Vicky says it’s all a big laugh, and she tells me how at the start these MPs and people are in one corner being all stiff and polite and staring at them like they’re in a zoo or something, and then Sporty – that’s Rita’s boyfriend, he’s this big Jamaican bloke – he goes up to this woman who looks like a duchess and offers her some draw. Vicky said she almost wet herself but she had a smoke and she’s going, ‘Ooh, how nice!’ like it’s a tea party. I wondered if that was Clinton’s friend so I asked Vicky a bit more and Vicky said she was wearing this great big frock and she looked like a horse … Clinton had said that too – the horse thing – when we was arguing, so I thought, OK, that must be Mrs Rutherford, but Vicky said she must have gone because she couldn’t see her anywhere. Then I asked Vicky if she’d seen Clinton but she hadn’t and nor had anyone else. Anyway,’ Gloria leant forward, immersed now in her narrative, ‘there was plenty to drink so I helped myself and had a look round. I couldn’t see Clinton, but I saw a couple of friends of his, Charlie and Tony, and they said they didn’t know where he was – or if they did they weren’t saying.’

  ‘And this was what time?’ asked Stratton.

  ‘Dunno.’ Gloria pulled a face, thinking. ‘About eleven, I suppose. I spent quite a long time with Sporty and this la-di-da sort with pearls on who was getting all hot and bothered just being around him. I felt so angry with Clinton that I wanted to say to her, you wouldn’t think he was so wonderful if he put you on the game, love, because that’s all they’re good for. I had another drink then, and I went into the little room they’ve got at the back. It’s usually a storeroom, but Clinton had tidied it up and there were people in there chatting. Then I spotted there was someone in the garden so I went for a look.’

  ‘Wasn’t it dark?’

  ‘Yes, but they’d propped the door open for air and there was light coming out the window, so you could see a bit. Anyway, I saw her. Vicky was right about the big frock – I saw the skirt first, all sticking out and bright blue with stuff stuck on it. I’d have gone out there, but then I saw she wasn’t talking to Clinton, but some other bloke.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘Well, he was white for a start. About thirty-five, I’d say. Must have been really gorgeous when he was younger. Lightish hair, sort of pinky tanned face, linen suit, stripy open-necked shirt, nice gold watch …’

  ‘Tall? Short?’

  ‘Quite tall, I think. I noticed he was only a little bit taller than her but she struck me as being more like a man than a woman, really. Reminded me of a bloke who used to come and see me: brought his own frock and apron and wanted to dust the place and be called Muriel while he was doing it.’

  It had to have been Virginia Rutherford, thought Stratton. Apart from the description of the dress, she had to be, he reckoned, around 5 foot 10 or 11 in height plus she’d been wearing shoes with heels which would bring her up to, say, six foot. Rutherford was a similar height to himself which would make him, as Gloria had said, only a little bit taller. ‘Did you hear him say anything?’

  ‘Oh, yes. They were having a right old ding-dong.’

  ‘What about?’

  Gloria frowned. ‘I’m not really sure. I didn’t catch all of it, but at one point he said something about why was she being so high and mighty. Anyway, I’m listening to this and thinking Clinton’s got to be somewhere round the place when someone comes up behind me and grabs my arm, and it’s him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” an’ all this and he’s dragged me off up the garden—’

  ‘So you went past the man and the woman?’

  ‘Straight past, but they never noticed, just carried on arguing.’

  ‘Did Etheridge know they were there?’

  ‘He wasn’t paying no attention – too busy trying to get me away from his nice posh friends so I don’t ruin his chances. And it’s pitch black once you get away from the little bit of light outside the house. I can’t see a bloody thing and I feel like I’ve twisted my ankle and I’m yelling for Clinton to stop, only he won’t let go. He’s going on about how I’m going to wreck everything and I’m saying, “Oh, so I’m not good enough for your smart new friends? Let’s just ask them whose money it was they think bought you that flash suit and them rings.” Then I said—’ Gloria’s eyes flashed with the memory of it ‘—I said, “Those posh birds going to get that for you, are they? You want to remember which side your bread’s buttered, you do.” Course, now he’s realised I’m not going to take any shit off him, he’s trying to calm me down and he’s going, “Come on, man, you’ve seen how she looks,” so I said, “Yeah, but it doesn’t stop you fancying her money, does it?” And by now I’m screaming at him, “Did you fuck her?” and all this, and he’s doing his nut trying to get me to shut up.’

  I’ll bet he was, thought Stratton. He’d already lost one potential source of income that day in the form of Irene, and now here was Gloria, tanked up and yelling her tits off, threatening another. ‘Do you think the man and woman heard you?’

  ‘I don’t know. I never looked to see if they were still there.’

  ‘What about the people in the house?’

  ‘I doubt it. That music was bloody loud and from what I saw they were all, you know …’

  ‘So what happened then?’

  ‘Well, Clinton’s telling me he never laid a hand on her and I should shut up and go home because I’m drunk – but I can’t have been all that drunk because otherwise I wouldn’t remember any of it, would I? Anyway, then I’ve calmed down and said I’ll go home and he’s saying he’s sorry and he’ll explain everything, and then we go back to the house.’

  ‘Were the man and woman there then, when you went back inside?’

  ‘Well, two people come past us, and I thought it was them because I heard the woman’s dress make a rustling noise, but I couldn’t see their faces or nothing.’

  ‘Which direction were they going? Towards the house or into the garden?’

  ‘Into the garden.’

  ‘And you think it was the two you saw before?’

  ‘Well, I never saw anyone else come out. Not that I was really paying attention, but you know, out of the corner of my eye … Anyway, I never got the chance to have another look because suddenly there’s this bang and all the lights go out and everybody’s screaming. I’m knocked off my feet and Clinton’s disappeared and I’m thinking he must be dead or something—’

  ‘Were you inside the house when this happened, or outside?’

  ‘Just outside. I’m trying to pick myself up off the ground and there’s people all over the place—’

  ‘People running into the garden?’

  ‘Yeah, lots of them. I’m fighting my way past all these people to get back into the house because I’m thinking Clinton’s in there, only I can’t find him. And then there’s another explosion right in front of me, and I’m down on the floor and I can feel this blood and I still can’t see him … Then this woman comes and helps me and she keeps saying, “You’ve got to come with me,” but I’m still looking for Clinton. I don’t want to go till I know he’s all right, but I can’t see him.’ Gloria shook her head and flicked the end of her cigarette towards the tiny grate. ‘You know the rest – you saw me. Are you sure you don’t know what happened to him, Mr Stratton?’

  ‘He wasn’t taken to hospital, Gloria. If he had been, I’d know about it.’

  ‘But if he’d been hit on the head and lost his memory, or … I don’t know!’ Gloria burst into noisy tears and, as she clearly had no handkerchief, Stratton offered his.

  ‘Thanks. I’ve been so worried.’ She blew her nose violently, mopped awkwardly and ineffectually at her face, then started crying again. The worst thing about such moments, Stratton always found, was having to sympathise with distress while, at the same time, determining its level of authenticity, and this was no different. Now, he said,
‘I can understand why you’re upset, Gloria, but I can’t believe it hasn’t occurred to you that there’s another reason why Etheridge might have disappeared.’

  ‘He didn’t do it,’ said Gloria, shoulders heaving, ‘if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘How do you know? And don’t bother telling me it’s because he’d never hurt a fly.’

  Gloria blew her nose again and stared at him reproachfully. ‘I wasn’t going to. If he was hoping to get something off her, he’d be pretty stupid to do her in, wouldn’t he? But,’ she added, glaring at him, ‘that ain’t going to stop you lot fitting him up for it, is it? Clinton always says a coloured man’s got no chance in this country, and he’s right.’

  CHAPTER FORTY

  On his way back to the station, Stratton reflected that Gloria had been brave, if foolish, to return to the burning house to look for Etheridge. Had the circumstances been reversed, he very much doubted that Etheridge would have done the same for her. She seemed to have very few illusions about the sort of man he was – he wondered briefly how much she’d known, or guessed, about Irene – but then he supposed that her expectations of men must be pretty low.

  She was right, however, when she said that there was no reason for Etheridge to kill Mrs Rutherford. Alive, she was – potentially, at least – worth a great deal to him; dead, she was worth nothing. But then, it seemed to him that she was worth more alive to Giles Rutherford too, and very possibly to Perlmann.

  *

  An elderly tomato sandwich was all the canteen could offer at such a late hour by way of lunch. He carried it into the office, where Dunning had left a note on his desk: Car owned by Mr G. Rutherford is Bentley ‘R’ type Continental. Colour blue, registration PFY 340. O’Driscoll had said that the first two letters of the registration were P and F.

  If the man Gloria had seen arguing with Mrs Rutherford just before the explosion was her husband – and it certainly sounded like him – then he couldn’t have left the party at half past ten or a quarter to eleven, as he claimed, and he certainly couldn’t have been at April Scott’s flat at either of those times. Moving aside the curling remains of his lunch, Stratton jotted down some estimates of times and distances: