‘I don’t like you wandering around on your own.’ Janet slipped the leaflet into her notebook.
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘OK.’ Janet didn’t look convinced.
‘What he said before he died was something like “Car Wo My”.’ Stella leaned against the pillar. ‘It wasn’t that, obviously.’
‘…Cah… ca… wo… my…’ His eyes were fixed on Stella, wild, his pupils enlarged. He looked terrified.
‘Car? Wo my.’ Stella felt stupid, it couldn’t be that hard.
‘C-c-chh…’
Joy brought him a mug of chamomile at the Death Café; Felicity told me beforehand that she hated the smell,’ Stella added because she’d observed it.
‘Did he want you to get him some perhaps? A last craving. Not heard that one before.’ Janet folded her map. ‘Car Wo My, chamomile – it could work I suppose?’
‘No, when I asked him if he meant that his eyes said no.’
‘If it becomes clearer, or you remember anything, call.’ Janet passed Stella a card with the Gloucestershire Constabulary badge at the top. Stella noted with surprise that Janet was still an inspector; she hadn’t moved west for promotion.
‘I will.’ Setting off down the nave, Stella was grateful she felt so weak or she might not have resisted the temptation to run, which would look guilty. She had reached the porch door when Janet called to her.
‘One more thing, Stella.’
One more thing. Terry had taught Janet well.
‘You refer to March as Roddy, not Roddy March. Odd when you didn’t know him?’ Janet tipped her head.
‘He bled to death on my lap. I was the last person he heard before he died. So yes, I call him Roddy.’ Stella stormed out.
She was on the main street when she got the call. ‘Where’s my rogan josh?’ said the corncrake voice.
Chapter Fourteen
December 1940
Sunlight washed the soot-darkened brick of Hammersmith’s Coroner’s Court. The sky was blue as an August day, but the bitter cold penetrating George Cotton’s overcoat left no doubt it was winter.
Would spring ever come? Would there be primroses in his garden? He longed for the forsythia to bloom.
Last night Wailing Wally, as Agnes called the siren, had gone off at 6.32, with no all-clear until 5.18 a.m. The noise was terrifying, an assault on the nerves, but as he’d told June, it’s our guns that make most of the racket, let’s pray they bring down lots of Nazis. Agnes had been at the substation – she’d ignored his pleas and joined the Auxiliary Fire Service – another reason to fret. But never one to sit still, Agnes had great faith in Churchill, he was a decisive leader with the courage to put himself in the same danger he asked of his people. Cotton had his doubts about the man – you only had to go back to Gallipoli. Cotton was more for Clement Attlee.
Cotton had given up on vicars; as he’d told Hackett, the lead was dead. Hackett was pleased, it wouldn’t help the war effort to put a man of the cloth behind bars.
The investigation had hit the buffers. Shepherd had interviewed Maple’s colleagues at the dairy and tramped around Hammersmith and Shepherd’s Bush showing Maple’s picture in local pubs. No one at the Palais de Danse had remembered her. They had her photo flashing up in cinemas before the main picture. Vernon had remembered Maple said her fiancé was always comparing her to film stars. Vernon reckoned that was what had turned her head. A painful irony that it was not as a film star Maple had made it to the big screen. So far, nothing. Now Cotton had to find a way to get Aleck Northcote’s lighter back to him without embarrassment.
‘Doc’s still in there.’ Frank Tither, one of the coroner’s officers, jerked a thumb at the mortuary when he saw Cotton. ‘Go on in, George, he won’t mind, seeing as it’s you.’
‘I’ll wait.’ Cotton could leave the lighter in the officers’ room, but both officers kept their desks shipshape; Tither in particular had the eyes of a hawk. Cotton swore inwardly – who would credit this charade when he had a murder to solve?
Although the mortuary dealt with the dead, it was never quiet. Tiles reverberated with the bang of doors as police, undertakers and mortuary staff crashed in and out, and the rattle and clang of trolleys and trays.
‘Come in, George, have a cuppa.’ PC Cameron, the other coroner’s officer, beckoned him.
Cotton couldn’t resist the retreat into the cubbyhole where the two men worked. A coal fire in the grate overcame the razor-sharp draught from a bomb-shattered pane that, covered with hardboard, made the room more cave-like. Cotton accepted the tea which Tither ‘squeezed out of the pot’, and was ‘honoured’ with an arrowroot biscuit: ‘…we don’t offer them to all-comers.’
Cotton got on with the two men which was good because they were Wolsey Banks’s mastiffs. If they took against you then you waited your turn and that could be a while.
Tommy Cameron was a Gloucestershire man and, like Cotton, in his late forties and retained on the force for the duration of the war. Typically, he was mid-way through a story from the good old days. Son of a farm labourer, Cameron spent his boyhood snoozing in hayricks or against the side of a cow he was milking. He picked damsels from the hedgerows, his joke. He was regaling Tither with his runaway bull story. Tither rolled his eyes at Cotton, but the tale – taller with the telling – evoking a time before gas-mask training, fire-watching and the crushing blackout, meant they were only too happy to hear it again. Although Cotton was higher in rank, he envied them. Particularly this morning – what he’d give to be a pen pusher, expediting files for a boss he respected.
Wolsey Banks was the best coroner in the country. He’d fought in the Dardanelles in 1915, which made him an Eden man: Churchill is a jackass. Like Northcote, Banks was scrupulously fair to his deceased. Banks treated police officers with respect, unusual for his profession. Yes, right enough, Cotton reflected as he munched on the biscuit, he’d give a lot to see out his days working for Banks.
‘You don’t look in the pink, George.’ Cameron had stopped talking and was scrutinizing him. ‘You still on that prostitute’s murder?’
‘We have no fingerprints, no witnesses, no suspects.’ Cotton didn’t mention Northcote’s lighter that led them nowhere except up the creek. ‘She wasn’t a prostitute.’
Cotton had to keep scotching the rumour; no wonder that Maple’s brother Vernon Greenhill lost his rag.
‘I beg to differ, George.’ Aleck Northcote stood in the doorway. ‘Why else was she there?’ He waved away Tither’s signalled offer of tea. ‘Thank you, Constable, but I have to be in Hackney within the hour.’
‘Could we have a quick word, Aleck?’ Cotton went out to the yard with Northcote. Alberta Porter was waiting by the open driver’s door. Cotton felt for her, standing in the cold, and, fleetingly, entertained the notion she and Aleck were lovers. He dismissed it – if Northcote was unfaithful, it was only to his work.
‘What can I do for you, Cotton?’ Gathering up the skirts of his coat, Northcote climbed into the Daimler and when Porter closed the door, he wound down the window a few inches.
Cotton felt almost worse than when he told the Greenhills Maple had been murdered, at least that was his job. Never had he had to draw attention to a senior colleague’s mistake, especially Northcote, famed for never making one. Cotton braced himself to be ticked off for giving the game away about the lighter to Northcote’s assistant when he telephoned his office.
He skirted the issue. ‘In your report you said Maple Greenhill’s vaginal passage showed evidence of frequent sexual intercourse typical of the average prostitute. Yet the Greenhill family swear blind Maple never went with men like that. Her brother was ready to clout me for hinting it. I just wanted to check if you were correct about that.’
‘A man has to defend his sister’s honour.’ Northcote unknowingly echoed Shepherd. ‘In that girl’s case, I’m afraid the bird had long flown. As I say, the corpse is my bible, it renders unto me facts and facts alone. I have to dash, George, anothe
r Annie awaits. Shrapnel casualty while up to tricks in a shelter by the Homerton Hospital.’
‘Maple’s mother says not—’ Cotton felt angry that Northcote had to call every dead woman ‘Annie’.
‘Horrible though it is to hear that the fair sex transgresses, I can assure you it is no mistake. Your victim indulged in sexual activity up until the last minutes of her life.’ Northcote was also famed for disliking his opinions challenged, it was a brave man who took him on. ‘Mothers believe their most delinquent child is a saint. Julia would forgive Giles the most heinous crime. However, I admire your faith in human nature.’
‘All the same—’
‘I cannot alter my findings to suit your theory, I expect you to understand that, Inspector Cotton.’ A warning that the conversation was over.
‘Could the striations you describe have come from the same partner?’ As Maple’s defender, Cotton ignored the warning and said, leaning on the Daimler’s roof, ‘Vernon Greenhill says his sister was engaged, we found a ring. A cheap trinket, but the jewellery box will give us a lead.’
‘That’s more your area, sir.’ Northcote gave a wintry smile.
As the car began to roll forward, Cotton kept pace. At the turn out of the gate he thrust his hand through the gap in the window.
‘You left this.’ He passed Northcote the lighter.
‘What the devil… Where did…?’ Northcote braked. Cotton saw truth dawn. ‘Damnation, I must have left—’
‘Call for you, George.’ PC Cameron was waving from across the yard. Tipping his hat at the car, Cotton hastened away into the mortuary.
‘Sir. You’ll never guess.’ Shepherd always shouted into the telephone.
‘I’m expecting not to try.’ Cotton tapped on Cameron’s desk with the brim of his hat. After his hash of telling Northcote, whatever Shepherd had to say it had better be good.
‘A ticket.’
‘A ticket?’ Cotton stood in front of the fire.
‘A mending ticket for Maple’s coat.’ Shepherd’s excitement recalled Cotton’s own, now long gone. ‘It has the tailor’s address on the back.’
*
‘It’s a tailor’s mending ticket.’ Shepherd was panting, he’d run up the stairs. The lad should do physical jerks, he wasn’t fit. ‘It was in Maple’s coat.’
‘Bright’s Tailoring, Chiswick High Road.’ Taking the card from Shepherd, Cotton flipped it over. ‘What’s this say?’
‘I can’t tell. It’s not Greenhill. Could that be a J? The letter looks like an M.’ Shepherd was fired up with success.
‘We searched her coat, how did we miss it?’ Cotton didn’t dare hope they were on to something.
‘It had been stuffed into a pocket lining, had almost reached the hem. I know where this tailor is, near Turnham Green Station where my nan had a flower stall next to the Standard seller. That’s until the war stopped her.’ The cat with the cream, Shepherd was gabbling.
‘Shepherd, this is excellent police work, we’ll make a Robert Fabian of you yet.’ Cotton put Northcote and his ruddy lighter behind him. The case was looking up.
Chapter Fifteen
2019
Jackie
‘Eleven fifteen and no stalker calls today so far.’ Jackie handed Bev her coffee.
‘The thing about stalkers is they don’t stop.’ Bev was grim.
‘Is she here?’ The door flew open and crashed against a filing cabinet. A man, tall, gaunt, overcoat buttoned to his chin, slammed it shut behind him and stalked past the photocopier, barging into Stella’s room.
‘No, she isn’t.’ Jackie came around her desk.
‘That’s her coat.’
‘She didn’t take it with her.’ Beverly was on her feet.
A distant siren grew louder. Whoop-whooping as it stopped and then started again. Light strobed across the ceiling; engines revved as vehicles made way for whatever emergency vehicle it was. When the siren sounded again it was distant once more.
‘Sit there.’ Jackie motioned towards Suzy’s empty desk. Trying not to sound too placatory, ‘We’ve just made a pot of tea, we’ve got biscuits.’
Jack Harmon. Forty-two. Underground driver on the District line’s dead-late shift. Single parent of four-year old twins and, on high days and holidays, cleaning operative for Clean Slate. Not actually a sole parent, Justin and Milly lived with Jack’s ex. He’d been coming to Clean Slate every day, except yesterday which had raised Jackie’s hopes that he was mending. As if Jack was her third son, she hated to see him suffer. Stella was the love of Jack’s life and when she left, he’d lost his soulmate. They all had.
Jack ignored her invitation to sit. He flew about the office, touching the filing cabinets, flicking at the curling corners of cleaning product posters, pausing at the framed ISO 9001 accreditation certificate and new jobs whiteboard which was blank.
‘Jack, sit down.’ Beverly was sharp. To Jackie’s surprise, without a word Jack did as she told him.
Whereas Jackie and Beverly had been shocked by Stella’s move to Tewkesbury with Lucie May, Jack had become a ghost of his former self. He became his former self. Jackie was sure that after he’d stabled his train, Jack had returned to his old ways of stalking through London streets. Walking until morning. When Stella met Jack, he’d been hunting the man who, three decades earlier, had murdered his mother. Against great odds, he and Stella had caught her killer, and the hunting – haunting – seemed to have stopped. Now, without Stella, even Jack’s truly delightful children could not chase dark clouds from his sun. Stella had made it possible for Jack to love. Her leaving had frozen his heart.
‘She’s stopped answering texts,’ Jack wailed. ‘I was wondering if I should go there.’
‘Go where?’ Beverly looked fierce.
‘To see… to Tewkesbury. Check on Lucie. After that injury, we should monitor her.’ Jack bent and retied his shoelace. ‘I’ll give her an update on Endora.’
‘Endora’s fine,’ Jackie said. Endora, a budgie, had been given to Lucie by her nephew. The pair, irascible, constantly tossing nuts and figs about, were suited. ‘Gary said Endora’s enjoying her holiday back with him.’
‘Bad idea.’ Beverly was blunt. ‘If Stella wanted to see you, she’d have said. Instead she’s stopped answering your texts. Lucie keeping you up to date is doing you no good, although it does tell you that Lucie herself is just fine.’
‘Lucie thinks Stella might want to come back,’ Jack said.
‘Since when is Lucie May a judge of character?’ Jackie couldn’t help herself. ‘She judges everyone by their story-value.’ She gave Jack his tea. Stella was the younger sister Jackie hadn’t had and she loved her as she loved Jack. Yet she was clear-eyed about Stella’s flaws. Like her tendency to retreat when relationships got serious, and to bandy clichés from a bad drama. Stella had told Jack she needed space. At least, as Stella once had with another lovelorn man, Jack hadn’t been dumped by text.
‘She sent Justin and Milly Beatrix Potter books. That’s a sign,’ Jack said.
‘It’s a sign she’s thinking of them,’ Beverly barked.
‘I’m glad she’s keeping in touch.’ Jackie tried to catch Bev’s eye to go easy, Jack was a gentle soul. ‘It’s hard for four-year-olds to understand.’ No need to remind Jack how a small child handled loss. He’d been one when he lost his mother. Jackie reassured herself that Jack’s own children had a mother. Jackie knew Bella was cross with Stella. I said she’d leave them in the lurch.
Justin and Milly adored Stella and, to Jackie’s surprise as Stella had never wanted to be a parent, she adored them. Jackie knew about the Beatrix Potter books – out of the blue, Lucie had texted, Don’t let Jackanory get his hopes up. Lucie was Janus by another name.
‘Did Lucie tell you it was a sign?’
‘No. But surely Stella would cut all ties with them if she didn’t want me,’ Jack said.
‘That doesn’t follow.’ Beverly was glaring at the jobs board. Not stupid, she’d know her job
was on the line, Jackie would have a word later. Stella couldn’t help having what amounted to a breakdown, yet Jackie wished she had taken refuge with Graham and her so they could administer love, care and fresh food with no ready-meals or takeaways. That said, Graham took Suzie Darnell’s view: never mind what Clean Slate offered customers, Stella deserved her own fresh start. What did he know? Sixty-one and in love with his new motorbike, Graham was in the midst of his own life crisis.
The phone rang and Beverly snatched it up. ‘Clean Slate for a fresh start… Sorry? Oh, I’m not sure… Oh, would you know, we’ve just had a cancellation. I can get a cleaner to you tomorrow.’
A real call. Jackie could have kissed Bev for not sounding desperate.
‘This woman’s letting her flat, she wants deep cleaning, including carpets.’ Beverly paused. ‘That was Stella’s favourite kind of job.’
‘Yes, Stella loved deep cleaning.’ Anxious, Jackie glanced at Jack who must see the deep-cleaning request as a portent, but his expression was granite.
He said, ‘Loves, not loved. Stella isn’t dead.’
A piercing police siren, this time from inside the room, made them all jump.
‘Lucie’s texted.’ Jack waved his phone. Lucie had installed her ringtone on Jack and Stella’s phones. At her most generous, Jackie had to admit the seventy-plus-year-old was a bit of a card. ‘This is crazy – Stella’s on the news. She found a body.’ Tea splashed on the carpet tiles as Jack leapt up. ‘Lucie says, “We have a new case! Jackeroo, this is your moment, get here now!”’
‘Maybe wait until Stella—’ Jackie was talking to a closing door as Jack’s footsteps clattered down the stairs to the street.
Chapter Sixteen
2019
Stella
Watery sunlight drifting between drab curtains glanced off foil cartons, two glasses and a bottle of Merlot, empty now, on a coffee table. One glass, tipped on its side, was blocked from rolling onto the threadbare carpet by the splayed arm of a corkscrew.
The Distant Dead Page 11