The Cold North Sea

by The Cold North Sea (retail) (epub)

  The rich man relished Mordecai’s confusion. He chuckled to himself.

  ‘…But of course. How quaint…’

  Do not mock me!

  ‘…You’ve never seen such things before. Five-pound notes… “White fivers” in common parlance…’

  Ten of them?

  ‘Fifty… fifty pounds?!’

  Mordecai felt weak in his legs. He sat on the bench.

  ‘Half up front, the rest on completion,’ said Weathers.

  The valet brushed off the bowler and passed it back to Mordecai.

  ‘You’re a valuable member of our organisation, Mordecai,’ declared the rich man. ‘Take good care of it.’

  He set his little dog down again. Weathers went to lead the way.

  ‘Learn the terrain, Mordecai,’ said the master. ‘Follow the road down to Westminster and back. And pay special attention to this square, the routes in and out of it. Familiarise yourself. Make yourself at home.’

  He turned to go.

  Said Weathers: ‘We will be in touch very soon.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Annie sat on the bed and cracked the spine on the new book she had purchased on one of her wanderings down Charing Cross Road. She wondered whether Henry James’ The Golden Bowl – raved about by the critics – was a novel she felt she ought to be reading rather than one she might genuinely enjoy. The prospect of a story about an outsider caught in a web of wealth, class and strained romance in the capital of the British Empire was subject matter, she suspected, she should perhaps steer clear of.

  The telephone rang. The device, like everything in the penthouse suite, was not just something of function but also form. More than that, it was an object of beauty, all ivory and gold – genuine ivory, she figured, on the hand receiver anyway. She wondered what a poor elephant had done to deserve such an inglorious memorial.

  She had a sudden, grimly ironic thought about the name of the new process of long-distance dialling, allowing callers to circumvent the operator, that was now possible in some parts – a ‘trunk call’.

  The hotel operator announced that it was Edward on the line. He was in Glasgow (still). Something to do with the Clyde shipyards. He would be there for another day or two, longer than he thought. He would have to travel to Liverpool directly to catch the boat. She should make her own way. He would meet her there on Saturday. Was that okay?

  She had little choice, she knew. She had little say, either, in the fact that his secretary was with him again… or that said young woman, a surprise fellow traveller on their voyage – a belated honeymoon tour, of all things – would now be accompanying them to the United States.

  As she hung up the phone, there was a knock at the door. Annie let the bellboy in. He was attired in a braided drummer-boy tunic and hat and brandishing clothing trailing from a wooden hangar, held beneath a paper covering.

  ‘Suit… for Mr Pointer.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘D’you want me to hang it in the wardrobe, Miss?’

  ‘Hook on the door’s fine.’

  He attended to it.

  ‘Right clever this dry cleaning, ain’t it, Miss?’ he chirruped.

  Her thoughts were elsewhere.

  ‘Miss?’

  ‘I suppose so… yes,’ she said, fumbling in her purse for some change. ‘Tell you the truth, I’m not even sure how they do it.’

  ‘Chemicals or something, Miss. Not right sure myself.’

  She pressed some pennies into his hand.

  ‘Thank you, Miss. Anything else I can do? The tray? Shall I take it away?’

  He nodded at the pot, the cup and jug of milk on the tray on the dressing table and the remnants of toast, butter and preserves.

  ‘No, that’s fine.’

  ‘Very good, Miss,’ he said and left.

  The penthouse suite contained everything Annie had imagined and more. It had burgundy velvet curtains, a Persian carpet, Queen Anne furniture, the biggest bed she had ever slept in, as well as the deepest bath she had ever sunk into. There was no food, no luxury, no delight, that was not a telephone call away, twenty-four hours a day.

  There was a bedroom, a bathroom, a drawing room for entertaining. There were top-lit oil paintings on the wall – French and Impressionistic. Originals too. If not of the masters, then of those whose work was of passable quality.

  Annie went to the French doors onto the terrace and looked out across the Thames with its endless stream of barges and tugs and river transports, the panorama bisected by Cleopatra’s Needle – Hungerford Railway Bridge to the right, the dilapidated Waterloo Bridge to the left, covered in ugly scaffolding. There were the Pleasure Gardens on the South Bank opposite. Were they worthy of being a destination on another of her epic strolls? She hadn’t yet explored the other side of the river, around by the grand Waterloo station.

  She wolfed the last of the toast, polished off the contents of the coffee pot, laced up her boots and pulled on a hacking jacket and sensible cloche hat. (Why, oh why, in this country, did she always have to wear a hat?)

  On exiting the lift in the lobby, she crossed the marbled floor, heading for the rear exit to the Embankment. The place was busy, people standing around with luggage, waiting to check out. She sought solitude. She had her Henry James in her bag. She would walk for a while, then sit somewhere and read. She had also sneaked in a packet of cigarettes – Player’s Navy Cut, a secret habit – and trusted that she could enjoy her own company, unchaperoned.

  As she headed for the revolving door, she heard her name being called. It was the lanky, fawning concierge. Probably a confirmation of some other errand that had been run on Edward’s behalf.

  ‘Sorry, Miss, but there’s a gentleman waiting for you,’ he said, throwing her somewhat. ‘Says it’s important. He’s been here a while.’

  He led her to a recessed area off the busy lobby, set back behind potted palms, where a man sat in an armchair drinking tea, his raincoat slung over the armrest, Homburg on top. He rose as he saw her. He was middle-aged, smallish, was wiry in his physique and sported an anonymous grey pinstripe suit. He was bald on top, with dark but greying hair around the sides. He had a full moustache and wore round, wire-framed spectacles around brown beady eyes. To Annie he looked like an insurance salesman.

  ‘Mrs Pointer?’ he ventured.

  ‘Yes.’

  He nodded thanks to the concierge, who departed.

  ‘Sorry to ambush you like this, ma’am. My name is Coates.’

  He gave her an apologetic look and raised an index finger, as if to suggest that he’d forgotten a detail of the ritual. He fumbled in his jacket and produced a leather wallet. He flipped it open to show a Metropolitan Police badge and identity card.

  Annie, from her previous scrapes, knew enough to at least convey the pretence of studying it. Though in this case it got her attention.

  ‘Scotland Yard?’ she emphasised.

  ‘That’s right, ma’am.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Thoughts rushed through her head.

  ‘Edward… Is it Edward?!’ she panicked.

  ‘Your husband, ma’am? No.’

  He gestured.

  ‘Please… sit.’

  She took the edge of the chaise longue opposite, between them a coffee table. Despite the busyness at the front desk, the civility of a five-star hotel continued – the hushed chatter of the guests, the silent business of the staff, porters artfully wheeling trolleys of suitcases.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ the man asked.

  ‘I’d rather you just told me what this is about,’ she urged. ‘Detective… Is it Detective?’

  ‘Detective will do, ma’am. I’m afraid at Special Branch we’re not permitted to divulge rank.’

  ‘Special Branch?’

  ‘New unit, ma’am. Let’s just say our business concerns matters of national security.’

  She began fussing with her bag, rearranging its contents nervously and unnecessarily. Coates watched as sh
e removed her book and set it on the coffee table, followed by her gloves, her cigarettes.

  He picked up the Henry James and flicked through it.

  ‘Hear it’s all the rage, this one.’

  She took it back.

  ‘Some other time, perhaps.’

  Coates rolled his eyes and reached into his inside jacket pocket again.

  ‘Mrs Pointer, I don’t know whether this is an indelicate subject…’

  ‘Indelicate?’

  It was a photograph, about six inches by four. He handed it to her.

  ‘…but I wonder if you happen to know this man?’

  She did, instantly. Despite the sepia tinge and the blurred reproduction, it was a posed portrait of a man in the uniform of a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps. It had been taken pre-embarkation for South Africa, 1899, in some army studio, a standard shot, one arm resting on a pillar, pith helmet in the crook of the other, some kind of painted backdrop of trees and a triumphal arch in the background – an absurd suggestion of Greek or Roman glory. She once had a copy of it back home… till, on engagement to Edward, it had mysteriously ‘disappeared’.

  ‘Yes… Dr Ingo Finch,’ she said.

  He tucked the photograph away.

  ‘Look… Mrs Pointer… I don’t like to ask, but have you seen him of late… Dr Finch? I know that you were former associates and—’

  ‘Please, Detective, I’m not sure what you’re getting at.’

  ‘It’s just that we looked up his file… his military file… your file. When I say associates… Yes, you served together in South Africa but there’s… I mean, you were…’ he fumbled, ‘…you know…’

  ‘We were what?’

  If there was going to be an exhumation of her former private life, she was going to make damn sure she was indignant about it. She shoved her possessions back in her bag again, with purpose.

  ‘…It’s just that there’s a gap in the records – for both of you – a period marked “classified”.’

  It was something of a relief to Annie that he had gone off on a different tack.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to—’

  He raised his palms in apology.

  ‘No, Mrs Pointer, no. I wouldn’t dream of it. Classified is classified. I’m an ex-military man myself. Royal Navy. Seven Years in Way-High.’

  ‘Way-High?’

  ‘Wei-Hei-Wei… Port Edward as we call it. The China Station. Was attached to Royal Naval Intelligence… Signals… It’s why I’m here alone. Normally I’d have a constable with me. You know, working as a pair.’

  She nodded that she appreciated his discretion.

  ‘It’s just that, if you have seen him – Dr Finch – and I know you’re not long in the country… I do need to know.’

  He pulled out a notepad and pencil and shrugged a ‘do-you-mind?’ She nodded that it was okay.

  ‘It’s no secret, Detective. I saw him… we saw him, my husband and I, on Saturday evening. He was with his lady friend, a young woman called Maude… quite charming… I didn’t catch her last name… oh hang on, yes… Cutler… Carter… a schoolmistress…’

  His pencil was blunt.

  ‘Sorry, ma’am,’ he said, as he took out a penknife and whittled it to a point.

  He tried again.

  ‘There, that’s better. Saturday night, you say…? A Miss Maude Carter…?’

  ‘Yes… We ran into each other at a Chinese restaurant in Soho… the Cathay…’

  He pulled an approving face.

  ‘Very nice, ma’am. Hear it’s a right feast. The missus has been pestering me to take her. Loved the grub when I was out there, the Far East. Miss it rotten. Have always been trying to explain it to her.’

  Sincere as he might seem, Annie didn’t feel like getting sidetracked into pleasantries, though she knew – the small talk, the penknife, the police badge – it was more than likely a tactic, a means of lulling her into a false sense of security.

  ‘It was a purely chance encounter,’ she went on. ‘Dr Finch had no idea I… we… my husband and I, were even in London. We hadn’t seen each other since the war, you understand. We went our separate ways in early 1902. Two and a half years ago.’

  ‘Your husband can corroborate all this?’

  She knew from his reaction that her face thundered disapproval.

  ‘Is my word not good enough?’

  ‘No… no… Nothing like that. Forgive me, ma’am. I mean the lady friend…’

  He referred to his notes.

  ‘…Miss Carter, too. Just so we can cross-reference details, times… Build a comprehensive picture.’

  She started to get concerned again.

  ‘Why, what’s happened?’

  He stopped his note-taking.

  ‘I’ll come to that in a moment, ma’am, if I may… I need to be clear on movements, times. This was the only occasion you saw him, you say?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Please, go on…’

  She huffed.

  ‘Very well… Monday.’

  ‘Monday?’

  ‘Yes. I met him again.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here, right outside…’

  She pointed across the lobby, towards the river exit.

  ‘…on the Embankment… the gardens.’

  ‘You were with your husband again?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’

  The word hung awkwardly while she waited for to him to catch up with his pencil-work.

  ‘It was just after lunch. Half past one… two o’clock-ish. He’d been in the neighbourhood… Again, a chance encounter… Well not completely chance… I mean he had come into the hotel first… asked reception call up to the room. When he found out I wasn’t in… that we weren’t in… he went and sat in the gardens for a smoke. I just happened to be walking past.’

  ‘I see…’

  He jotted some more, breathing heavily in concentration while he did so. Whatever had been said seemed to carry significance.

  ‘Were you aware that he’d been at Somerset House?’

  She decided to play ignorant. It was plausible for a non-native not to know.

  ‘I’m not entirely sure what Somerset House is. A library?’

  ‘The Public Records Office.’

  She thought he’d bought it.

  ‘What did he say… What did he talk about… Dr Finch… The first occasion?’

  ‘Saturday…? It was just polite stuff really. I mean, he’d never met Edward before, and we’d never met Maude… Miss Carter. It was all fairly superficial. To tell you the truth we were probably a bit shell-shocked by the encounter. I mean, what are the odds? Edward and I, we asked them on to a show afterwards… the Café Royal… but they declined. Had to get back.’

  Coates scrawled on.

  ‘And on the Monday? What did he talk about then?’

  She paused for a moment. She had been told things by Finch in the strictest confidence and did not wish to betray it. She thought, given that he had already been questioned by the police, it was safe to rehash information that was probably already in their domain.

  ‘Well… there was that awful business with Mr Pickersgill. I had no idea on the Saturday that Dr Finch had taken in a man who was clearly ill and in a desperate situation. It must have been weighing on his mind. I’m supposing that’s the reason he left early. But then, yes, on Monday, he did tell me about it. He was quite shaken. He said he had acted in the interest of a poor fellow who had turned up on his doorstep and was not only suffering from possible influenza from sleeping rough, but appeared to be afflicted by paranoid delusions…’

  ‘Delusions?’

  ‘Yes, fearing for his own safety… So he took him in under his own roof, just temporarily, only to discover that, when he returned on Saturday night, the man had not just robbed him of some of his possessions, but had then wound up dead… murdered.’

  In the lounge, the string quartet started up. Vivaldi’s The Four S
easons – ‘Spring’. It sounded a bit thin with just four instruments, thought Annie.

  ‘Did Dr Finch tell you that he himself had been brought in for questioning the day before in connection with the murder?’

  ‘Actually he did, yes. He was very disturbed by the accusation. He thought it frankly ridiculous that anyone should think he might somehow be culpable. But he also said he’d been swiftly exonerated. He did add that he was culpable in the sense that he blamed himself indirectly for Pickersgill’s death. He should have kept him out of harm’s way.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  Had she said too much?

  ‘I don’t know, referred him somewhere or something, some medical establishment, I suppose?… The police maybe…?’

  ‘And why didn’t he?’

  ‘I really don’t know. But he did say that the next morning, after the man’s disappearance, he was on his way to the police station to report it all.’

  The detective wrote some more and collected his thoughts.

  ‘Somerset House… the Public Records Office… It’s a national archive, ma’am… personal details, census returns… Do you think it likely that Dr Finch had been in there to seek information… look something up… perhaps with regard to tracking someone down?’

  ‘Goodness… I don’t know… I really couldn’t say.’

  ‘The clerk there has furnished us with information as to the type of thing Dr Finch was researching.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I’m not at liberty to say, ma’am. But I can tell you Dr Finch was a man with specific intent.’

  ‘Intent?’

  The detective let out a sigh. He leaned back. She could tell he was searching for the right words.

  ‘I don’t know quite how to say this, Mrs Pointer, but you are a very lucky woman.’

  ‘Lucky? How so?’

  ‘This Dr Finch… the one you talk about in such an affectionate…’

  He checked himself.

  ‘…considerate manner… He is a very dangerous man.’

  She laughed.

  ‘Finch? Come on!’

  He leaned forward.

  ‘The police in Hertfordshire now have every reason to believe he did kill Sidney Pickersgill, ma’am… He was shot with Finch’s own gun, to begin with… The body had been moved and dumped, with a very poor attempt to disguise Pickersgill as a thief.’