“And what about this other bird?” Dick said. “Who was she?”
Pete looked past him to where the pub door was opening, a mess of white curls coming through. “I don't know that either,” he said, “but it looks like we might be about to find out.”
Coulter had his notebook in his hand, a purposeful look on his face. “Pete,” he said, “Dick. Pick your brains for a minute?”
They settled themselves in a table in the snug.
“The girl they found this morning,” Coulter said, “was another local. Mathilde Bressant, resident of Talbot Road, the only white woman in a house full of West Indians. Came from Scotland, apparently, but she must have been half French with a name like that.”
“Ooh la la,” said Dick, raising his eyebrows. “That why she had a taste for the exotic?”
“Hmmm, well.” Coulter flicked open his notebook. “This is what I want to ask you about. Mathilde, or Tilly as they called her, was last seen leaving The Blue Parrot Club on Westbourne Park Road about ten to two this morning.”
“The Blue Parrot?” Pete felt a tingle down his spine.
Coulter gave him a knowing look. “That's right. She left her handbag down there with one of the darkies, said she was just stepping out a minute, but she never came back.”
“Isn't that the club where Bobby Clarke's boyfriend was supposed to have been on the night of her murder?” Pete said.
“That's what I'd hoped you'd say,” said Coulter, smiling. “Algernon ‘Baby’ Ferrier and his mate George Steadman, the one in Ernie's photograph with Clarke and Simon Fitzgerald. We need to find them. They used to spend a lot of time at the Blue Parrot, the pair of them, but they've not been seen around in recent years. Which makes me think that some fine copper must have done society a favour and put them behind bars. If that's the case, it'll make them easier to interview. Would you mind giving me a hand checking out their records?”
“’Course,” said Pete, “be a welcome distraction from Sexy Ron McSweeney.”
“Ah yes,” Coulter said, raising his index finger. “To return the favour, let me give you this. I've had a tip-off about one of the fellows Stephenson was playing cards with on the night she died. An artist, no less.” He flicked backwards through his notebook. “Let's see. Oh yes. Bernard Baring is his name. Lives on the top floor of number 24 Powis Square. I would have looked him up myself, but with all of this I've not had the time. Maybe he can tell you a little more about what Stephenson and Sexy Ron were up to.”
Pete looked up at the clock.
“They keep bohemian hours, these artists, don't they?” he said.
“Yeah.” Dick picked up the remains of his pint and drained it. “If we get a move on, we might catch him having breakfast…”
Pete had never seen a place like it. From floor to ceiling, the top floor flat of 24 Powis Square was one great collage of paintings and postcards, pictures ripped from magazines and canvases of what looked to him like children's cartoons. A portrait of General Kitchener pointed his finger towards him, his moustache a forest of flowers with bluebirds flying out of it. Trapeze artists swung off the side of his military cap, a butterfly sat on his nose. JOIN THE CIRCUS was written above his head. It was signed at the bottom: Bernard Baring.
“I take it,” Pete squinted at the signature, “this is one of your own, sir?”
The artist nodded, the peevish expression on his thin face intensifying.
“This what you think of the army, is it?” Pete went on.
“It's satire.” Baring spoke in a condescending public school accent at odds with his scruffy appearance. “That's what Pop Art mainly is. An ironic commentary on our times, using the mediums of popular culture and folk art. But I don't think that's what you've come here to ask me about, is it?”
“No it isn't,” agreed Pete, “I'm just curious as to how good a living you can make out of stuff like this.”
“I do all right.” Baring stared down his pointy nose.
“I quite like this one,” said Dick, staring at a canvas of a racing car with a big target on the side of it. He turned and smiled at the artist. “How much would it cost me?”
Baring didn't bat an eyelid. “Five hundred guineas,” he said.
“Bloody hell.” Dick looked across at Pete. “No wonder he can afford to go throwing it about at the Holland Park Lawn Tennis Club.”
Pete kept his focus on the artist; saw the expression of shock bloom in his eyes as his long thin fingers flew up to his mouth.
“Holland Park Tennis Club?” Baring tried to keep his tone incredulous. “Do I look the athletic type to you?”
“Oh, we know you weren't there to actually play tennis,” said Pete, hardening his gaze. “You were there for the poker. You move in higher circles than we do of course, but surely you realised that was an illegal game?”
“Who said I was playing poker?” Baring's voice went up an octave. “Someone must be spinning you a line, officer.”
“We've got the dealer in custody down the station,” Pete said. “He kept his own sort of visitors’ book and your name was in it.”
This was a line, but it tripped Baring anyway. “Oh my,” he said, fingers fluttering up to his lips again.
“The thing is,” Pete continued, “it's not the gambling we're really interested in. It's the fact that he came into the station this morning claiming to have murdered a prostitute who was running the game with him. The same night that you were there, playing poker with him. Do you recognise her, sir?” He took the mugshot out of his jacket pocket. “You might have been the last person to see her alive.”
Baring's grey eyes widened as he took her in, fear flickering across his sharp face.
“Do you want to sit down and talk about it sir?” said Dick. “Or do you want to come down the factory with us, make sure we're telling the truth?”
Baring sank down onto his Victorian chaise longue, looking like he could do with some smelling salts. Pete let him have a minute to collect himself while he pulled up an armchair to face him. Dick stood where he was, leaning against the doorframe.
“All right, I'll admit that I did see her,” the artist said. “But I was just there to play cards, I don't mess about with common street filth like that. As it was, that horrible little man took me to the cleaners for a hundred pounds.” He shuddered, then dragged his gaze up from the floor to meet Pete's. “She was still there when I left, which would have been about midnight. And I didn't touch her, I assure you.”
“All right,” said Pete. “That horrible little man is called Ronald McSweeney. How did you find out about his card game, sir?”
“I don't know.” Baring shook his head dismissively, looked away again. “I was at a club in Kensington and somebody mentioned it, I can't remember who. I thought I'd just go for a giggle, I was halfway in my cups already. I don't like being taken for a fool,” colour suddenly flushed into his cheeks, “but I was certainly a mug punter that night, wasn't I? I was hoping to forget all about it.”
“Well,” said Pete, “maybe if you can help us out, we can forget you were there as well. I just want to know, if you can recall, how was McSweeney behaving that night? Did he seem at all agitated? Drunk or angry, perhaps?”
Baring shook his head slowly. “Not that I can recall. He seemed perfectly collected to me. Perfectly able to deliver me of a large amount of money with a smile on his face. He couldn't possibly have been drunk.”
The bitterness in his voice was genuine. Pete nodded at Dick, got to his feet.
“If anything else comes back to you,” he said, “call Notting Hill CID. Remember, this is about a murder, sir, not a game of cards.”
Baring nodded, whispered an insincere ‘thank you’, but made no effort to show them out.
“Do you believe him?” asked Dick as they clattered back down the stairs.
“Aye,” said Pete. “He lost his purse all right and he never touched her either, the toffee-nosed sod.”
“How can you be sure?”
Pete stood by the front door, looked back up the stairs. “You saw all the pictures he had on his walls. Not one of them was of a woman.”
“Ah.” Dick smiled. “I see. He's that kind of bohemian.”
30 IT’S OVER
“He went on treating me like Miss Haversham until it was all in the papers. They printed her address and a quote from one of the investigating officers,” I said. “Detective Sergeant Stanley Coulter. Toby didn't know what to think of me after that. I tried to explain it to him, like you said I should and you were right, you know. We have been married for nearly five years and we shouldn't have any secrets from each other. But I don't know if it was because I'd never told him any of this before or if,” my voice caught in my throat, “if I'd always known he wouldn't understand.”
“Oh Stel,” Jackie caught hold of my hand and squeezed it, “and you've kept this to yourself all this time. Why didn't you say something?”
“I don't know. I guess I was just hoping that once he'd had some time to come to terms with it, he'd accept that it's not because I'm mad or turning into an alcoholic.” I gave a bitter laugh at that thought. “But as I said to you in the first place, most people can't bring themselves to think about death in any way, shape or form. And it's not just that, either…”
“We've just never had a moment, have we?” Jackie said. She was right, this was the first time in nearly two months we had actually managed to be alone together. And that was only because we'd had a rush on and had to work late on some samples. Lenny had left ten minutes before, and as soon as he had, it had all come pouring out of me. The dead girls, Stanley and Toby, what a mess my life was in. Work had been the only thing keeping me sane since that terrible night.
Jackie took a pin out of the side of her mouth and stuck it into the dummy's head.
“Well,” she said, “let's call it a night, we're never going to get this right now, we're too tired, the both of us. Why don't we go for a drink, d’you fancy coming down the club again?”
“I don't know,” I said, “last time we were there, I saw that girl…”
“Oh, don't start thinking like that,” Jackie chided. “It's not your fault, you didn't make it happen – like I said, prozzers go down there the whole time. You can't start thinking like that, love, otherwise you will send yourself round the bend. But, I suppose, it is a bit crowded down there for us to have a decent chat.”
“Would you come back to my place?” I could hear the note of pleading in my voice. Toby was away again, in France this time, and the only thing worse than his empty bottles and withdrawn silences was being alone in that house. Every time I shut my eyes I could hear Mathilde Bressant's footsteps running down the street.
“You could stay the night and then we could come in early in the morning. Maybe we can even puzzle this out,” I put my tape measure round the neck of the dummy wearing the toile that we just couldn't seem to get right, “after a few drinks.”
Jackie nodded. “’Course I will, pet. We'll get some newspapers out and turn them into patterns on your kitchen table, just like our student days.”
“This is the scariest part. When the police got there the next day, her front door was still open. There were two cups sitting by the kettle with coffee granules in them, like she'd just been making them both a nice drink. And there was a record going round on her turntable. Guess who it was?”
Sitting round the kitchen table with cheese on toast, wine and Ella Fitzgerald on the record player, I had somehow found it easier to tell Jackie about the girls than say any more about Toby. Mathilde Bressant had affected me worse than the others, not just because of the proximity of my house to her abduction, or the way Stanley had described her flat to me. It was more the proximity of her life to my own. When I had seen her photo in the paper, looking over her shoulder as if she had never wanted her image to be captured, she looked so beautiful, like the sort of girl who would come into our shop.
Mya had also been upset to discover that Mathilde had once worked at the circus in Blackpool, on the flying trapeze. Maybe it was her French blood, but she was much more of an adventurer than any of the other girls had been, she had a spirit that hadn't been crushed by the things she had done for money. And for the short time I had been with her, I had shared one thing with her entirely – her taste in music.
“That bastard James?” said Jackie.
I nodded. “Got it in one. The latest one from that horrible-looking blond boy, HP Sauce or whatever his name is.”
Jackie curled her upper lip. “James was screwing him and all,” she said. “Broke Lenny's heart all over again.”
“The thing is, though,” I said, “she didn't even like that sort of music. She liked jazz.”
Jackie shuddered. “That is scary,” she said, reaching for the bottle of wine just as the telephone started ringing. “Oh my God.” Jackie withdrew her hand and crossed herself. “I nearly dropped the damn thing. Who's that calling at this time of night?”
I looked up at the clock. The hands were nudging towards eleven.
“It might be my husband,” I speculated. “He doesn't often know what time it is. Excuse me a minute.” I went out into the hall to get it, lifted the receiver with a sense of trepidation.
“Oh Stella darling, you are in!” Jenny's voice came singing down the line. “I thought you might be out somewhere glamorous but I had to give you a try. How are you?”
I was so relieved it was her and not Toby phoning up to say he loved me the only way he did nowadays – when he was pissed and full of remorse – that I started to laugh. “I'm fine, Jenny, how are you?”
“I'm brilliant and you won't believe this, but we're back!”
“Back in London?”
“Right around the corner from you, my dear, we've just rented a house in Elgin Crescent. Bob's got himself a big production up in Elstree, pots of cash and a little role for yours truly. But I said we couldn't live all the way out there, we had to come back and be near our friends. God I've missed you, Stella. This film lark is all right, but there's no one decent to talk to. No one,” she laughed, “who's ever read anything but a script.”
“I can imagine,” I said, wondering what this Bob would be like, if he was just a sugar daddy like Jackie thought.
“And how's your lovely Toby? And Lenny and Jackie?” Jenny said.
“Toby's away in Paris at the moment,” I said, glad we could leave it at that. “But Lenny's fine and Jackie's here with me now. We're just scheming round the kitchen table like we did when we were students. We're trying to think of something brilliant but at the moment we're stuck.”
“I wish I could join you.” Jenny lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Maybe I could help to inspire you. What are you working on?”
“Well,” I said, “we've been looking at all this Italian tailoring the mod boys are wearing and wondering how we can make an equivalent for girls. Only skirt suits somehow look too matronly, too old-fashioned, even in a nice tonic fabric.”
“But that's easy,” said Jenny. “Don't do it with a skirt. Do trousers instead. You know how Jackie always wears men's suits and they look so good on her. Why not dress all of London up like dykes?”
“You're wicked!” I said. “But I love it. Let me go and tell her.”
“Oh but before you do, are you doing anything next Saturday? We thought we'd have a housewarming party, but only if you can all come.”
“I'm sure we can,” I said. “We might even run you up a suit for it.”
“Excellent. Look forward to seeing you then, then.” Jenny rang off.
“What was all that giggling about?” Jackie said as I came back into the kitchen. “Not Toby, I take it?
“It was Jenny,” I told her. “She's moved back to London with her sugar daddy.”
“Well, well, well.” Jackie chuckled. “I must have magicked her up with my voodoo pin.”
“You bloody did as well,” I said. “She's just given us the most brilliant idea
…”
“So,” I said, standing on the doorstep of Jenny's new house, “what do you think?”
Both Jackie and I were wearing samples of our new trouser suits. Hers was in black – she could never bring herself to wear much in the way of colour – but mine was done in the tonic fabric I had liked so much, blue shot through with purple.
“Wow!” Jenny herself looked wonderful in a white crochet trapeze dress, her hair falling over her shoulders, her skin the colour of honey. “You look fab, the pair of you. What brilliant mind could have thought of that?”
“Which colour do you like the best?” I asked her.
She cocked her head to one side. “The black is classic,” she considered, “but I love that blue.”
“Just as well, then.” Lenny, who had been standing behind us, took his hands from behind his back and presented her with her own version of the suit I was wearing. “Here you go ducks. Welcome home.”
“Oh thank you.” Jenny was almost tearful as she looked from one of us to the others then attempted to pull us all into one big hug.
“Now come in, come in,” she said. “I can't wait to show you around.”
She led the way down a white-painted hallway with a long Persian runner down the middle of the dark floorboards, into a big, open-plan kitchen that looked out onto a rambling garden beyond. The back door was open and most of her guests seemed to be out there amongst the trees and the hollyhocks that were swaying on the breeze of a warm summer evening. Even the weather had turned out for Jenny; it was the start of a summer as long and hot as the winter had been cold and hard.
“Is Toby not with you?” she asked, hooking the suit over a chair and opening the door of the fridge.
“We've come straight from work,” I said. “So I take it he hasn't arrived yet?” I tried to keep the annoyance from my voice. “Oh well, he did only come back from Paris last night, he probably hasn't sorted himself out yet.”
Bad Penny Blues Page 27