The Cold North Sea

by The Cold North Sea (retail) (epub)

  She pressed into Finch’s hand a sheet of paper, a handbill. Under the header ‘Metropolitan Police’ and the notice ‘Caution’ was a grainy picture of himself. It was a close crop of his face from his army portrait. Underneath ran his name and the legend, in bold type: ‘DANGEROUS.’

  ‘Have been passed out all around Soho.’

  He screwed it up into a ball and threw it across the room.

  ‘Makes no difference. We need to move… fast.’

  ‘We need to move?’

  ‘Lulu… I need you… I need your help…’

  She raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  ‘…Please?’

  He pointed at his purloined fedora, which had gone flying across the floor. It had narrowly avoided the pebble-dashing. Lulu handed it to him and he pulled it on, yanking the brim down as far as he could.

  ‘Lulu… How’d you like to go on a date?’

  ‘With you?’

  ‘With me.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘The Savoy.’

  ‘How could a girl refuse?’

  He smiled as best he could.

  ‘No time to waste.’

  ‘Whatever you say, Hero.’

  Lulu helped take his weight and, slowly, they made it to the door. Once Finch was accustomed to being on his feet, it became slightly easier.

  ‘Now for the tricky part,’ said Lulu.

  It took them a few minutes, but gingerly, slowly, they clanged down the rickety iron staircase. They loitered in the alley till a free cab trotted past.

  ‘No offence, Lulu. But I think I stand a better chance…’

  Finch stepped out and waved his arm. The cab sailed right on by.

  A minute later, another one appeared, casually clip-clopping along.

  ‘Here…’ said Lulu.

  This time, she sauntered out. The cab stopped. She turned to Finch.

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself.’

  Lulu helped Finch up onto the running board and, on Finch’s promise of a huge tip for getting them to the Strand as quickly as possible, they were on their way. They ducked low in the cab’s awning.

  Lulu pointed. There was a police handbill lying on the floor, a footprint across it.

  In under ten minutes, the ecstatic cabbie – who in the absence of any convenient change had pocketed a five-shilling note – had deposited them a hundred yards short of the Savoy, on the north side of the Strand, right outside the Adelphi Theatre which, with its recessed foyer entrance, afforded them a view across to the hotel.

  ‘So what now?’ asked Lulu.

  Behind her hung a bright illustrated poster for the musical comedy The Earl and the Girl – it featured a buffoon dressed in ermine, smoking a cigar, with a young couple staring tenderly at each other in the background.

  ‘Lulu, I’m a marked man. I have to keep out of sight. If you can only do one thing for me, and for which I’ll be eternally grateful, I need to find out what’s happened to the woman in the Savoy’s penthouse suite. Her life may be in danger.’

  ‘And the police ain’t an option…’

  ‘Lulu, the handbill. I’ll be arrested on the spot. I’ll spend hours explaining myself. They’ll talk me round in riddles. Everything will grind to a halt. There’s other things I’m supposed to have done. Bad things…’

  ‘Honey, ain’t you a bunch of surprises?’

  ‘…I don’t know if this woman… my friend… has that much time. The first thing I need to know is if she’s there or not. If she’s in her room reading a magazine, sipping tea, then I’m a fool, I’ve been sold a pup. But at least she’s safe.’

  ‘And if she’s not?’

  ‘Then, as I fear, she’s been taken… kidnapped… and by some pretty unpleasant people…’

  He saw the doubt on her face.

  ‘Hero… much as I’d like to help, my kind ain’t the Savoy type, if you know what I’m saying.’

  ‘Round the back. The Embankment Gardens. There’s a tradesmen’s entrance and a service lift. There’s a porter there, young fellow – Indian, name of Pandit. You got that?’

  ‘Pandit, yes.’

  ‘Tell him that I’ve sent you… Dr Ingo Finch… the friend of Mrs Annie Pointer he helped earlier… Tell him that, on very good authority, you have every reason to believe Mrs Pointer has been abducted and is in serious danger. And that I’m hiding out across the street waiting on news.’

  ‘A married woman, Hero. You’re playing with fire.’

  ‘Annie Pointer. You got that?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Tell Pandit to use his initiative. Get him to check the room. If she’s not there, then alert the authorities immediately, hotel security, whatever he needs to do. There was a Scotland Yard detective sniffing round. Get Pandit to tell the truth about everything that’s happened.’

  ‘What if the abductors are holding her in her own suite?’

  ‘I doubt it, Lulu. But if so, it will be dealt with. Just tell Pandit that I sent you. I repeat… I have very good reason to believe that Annie Pointer is in serious danger.’

  ‘This Pandit… what if he’s not there?’

  ‘Then you’re going to have to go up to the penthouse suite yourself. You’re a resourceful lady, Lulu. I have faith in you.’

  ‘Faith and a lady?’ she mocked.

  ‘Lulu…?’

  He grabbed her hand.

  ‘…Seriously. Thank you.’

  She looked him in the eye.

  ‘This woman, Annie. You got it bad, ain’t you?’

  ‘That’s a question for another day.’

  She smiled.

  ‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’

  He watched Lulu scuttle off to the Waterloo Bridge end of the street, over to the left, making her way down Savoy Street, round to the Embankment Gardens. He lit himself a cigarette and waited.

  He heard a cough and turned round. There stood a small, bald, thin man in a raincoat, with a full moustache and round wire-framed glasses. He had stepped out of the doors to the foyer. He had obviously been in there for a while. They hadn’t noticed.

  ‘Dr Finch…?’

  Finch knew instinctively, even in that very second, that events had overtaken him. The man cleared his throat.

  ‘…You are hereby placed under arrest for the murder of Sidney Pickersgill, for the murder of Superintendent Dryden of the Norfolk Constabulary and the abduction of Mrs Annie Pointer, temporary resident of the Savoy Hotel. Anything you have to say will be—’

  ‘It’s okay, Detective,’ said Finch.

  ‘Coates, Scotland Yard,’ he replied.

  He raised a finger, as if he’d forgotten something, and pulled out a battered wallet from an inside pocket. It contained a shiny Metropolitan Police badge and his embossed credentials. He acted calmly, unthreatened, in control. Finch knew he must have backup.

  Sure enough, as he tucked the badge away again, two uniforms appeared. Finch didn’t resist and offered his wrists. The cuffs were clamped, causing him to wince as they were snapped over his right one.

  One of the coppers patted him down. He removed the Colt revolver from his jacket pocket, and from the other…

  The constable passed the book to Coates – The Golden Bowl by Henry James.

  ‘Hmmmm,’ he hummed and flipped it open.

  Finch watched him peruse the initials inked into the top corner of the blank endpaper.

  ‘A.J. – Annie Jones, as was, I believe. Isn’t that right, Dr Finch?’

  ‘Detective Coates, I want you to listen to me and listen well.’

  Coates issued an ironic smile and blew out a tired sigh.

  ‘I don’t wish to appear rude,’ he said, ‘but dictating terms is not really something within your powers.’

  ‘Look, we can discuss the murders… the alleged murders in due course,’ Finch protested. ‘Right now, it is of fundamental importance that we focus our full attention on the hunt for Mrs Annie Pointer. I was in her presence less than three hours ago. I have p
lenty of information…’

  Up ahead, he saw Lulu exit from the front of the hotel and stamp off westwards up towards Charing Cross, Bo-Peep curls bobbing. She moved with the angry demeanour of someone who’d just been ejected from an establishment deemed to be above her station.

  She was followed shortly by Pandit, the kindly porter. He stood on the pavement, looked back and forth, then over in Finch’s direction. Discreetly, or so he thought, he gently shook his head.

  Coates nodded to one of his coppers, who headed straight over.

  ‘In which case, Dr Finch,’ said Coates, ‘it’d really help us if you can tell us what you’ve done with her…’

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Annie sensed a blur of white. She strained her eyes towards the French doors. The light was moving. The harder she tried to pin it down, the more it seemed to dance, wheeling around, trailing a phosphorescent streak behind it. She thought of J.M. Barrie and his magical fairies.

  But the noise was wrong. There were no barges or steam horns from the river, no trains rattling in and out of Charing Cross. From the other side of the room, the far window, there came no clatter and bump of traffic grinding along the Strand.

  Annie lingered somewhere between waking and sleep, her consciousness like a thick, viscous syrup slowly easing its way through the neck of an upturned bottle.

  Faintly she heard a mewling… a whimpering… a sound of distress. For a moment she was back there in South Africa again… the sea cave at Cape Point… completely at the mercy of her would-be executioners. And with Finch…

  Finch… Finch…?

  She felt cold, like she did back then, her nerves shredded.

  Blood… There was redness now… Red… Who was hurt?

  ‘Finch!’

  This time she called his name out loud. The sound of her own voice startled her. The blur widened, receded, widened, receded. Eventually it filled her eyelids. She fluttered them. The daylight began to sting. She was lying on her back, her head turned slightly to the window off to her right.

  And the redness… It was the room… There was crimson flock wallpaper with floral swirls. There was a marble fireplace, velvet ruched curtains tied back with gold braided cord. She stared straight up. From an elaborate ceiling rose, a crystal chandelier hung.

  There was a plump maroon cushion behind her head. Brushed velvet… tassels. A divan. Someone had raised her feet. And there was a taste – something chemical… pharmaceutical. Her tongue felt like dry cloth.

  Drugged… I’ve been drugged.

  ‘Here…’

  It was a man’s voice. A voice she did not know.

  Something was being proffered and she reached out instinctively. Water. The glass was finely cut, the light glinting on it, a tumbler. It had ice cubes bobbing in it. The man put the palm of his hand between her shoulders and eased her forward. He inserted another cushion behind her, sitting her up.

  She took a long sip. It felt better but still the taste lingered.

  There was that sound again. The whimpering. Was there someone else in here? Were they hurt?

  ‘Mrs Pointer…?’

  A man’s voice. Slowly, she turned her head.

  ‘Mrs Pointer… You’ll be okay. Chloroform… it does that. Twenty minutes, you’ll be as right as rain.’

  He was crouching down to her level. His features were starting to register, emerging from an amorphous flesh oval. He had hair that was a browny-black but which seemed altogether wrong, unsuited… unnatural. He had a thin, pencil moustache. Moreover there was a smell… lavender.

  ‘You!… What are you—?!’

  ‘Please, Mrs Pointer.’

  She thought she heard the whimpering again.

  ‘Get away from me, you bastard!’

  She swung her right leg, intending to kick him in the face, but her altered state rendered it a lethargic, uncoordinated action. She missed, rather hopelessly. And then she realised, too… she was in stockinged feet; they’d taken her boots.

  There came a mocking chuckle in the background. There was someone else.

  She strained her neck but couldn’t see. He stepped into view. It was difficult at first, shifting her focus. It strained her eyes. He was in his sixties, had grey hair, was dressed in a brown suit with a coat of sable fur draped around his shoulders. He had the rounded belly of good living. There was a gold signet ring on his little finger.

  Then she saw… the whimpering, it had been coming from a dog… or rather a pathetic excuse for a dog. The man was cradling it in his arms.

  ‘Allow me to introduce myself,’ he said, his voice round, rich, plummy. ‘My name is Chilcot…’

  Finch…! It’s him…!

  ‘…Or, to be precise, before the family’s insistent Anglicisation… Chikolov.’

  Finch, I must be in his house.

  The man called Chilcot stroked and soothed the dog, a light-brown, short-haired thing with big round eyes; a quite unpleasant looking creature, she thought – more rodent than canine. A chihuahua, the new fashion accessory. The Aztecs used to breed them for soup, someone had once told her… It was Finch… Finch who had said so.

  Finch?

  ‘Where am I?’

  ‘Please, if there is one thing this residence prides itself on… that I pride myself on… it is hospitality, Mrs Pointer. I can assure you that you will be well looked after here, and are most safe. We will do all we can to make you comfortable.’

  Annie knew she should play it calm, keep her cards close to her chest, but in the swimming soup of her mind, the lack of certainty was overwhelming.

  ‘What do you want from me?’

  The man shook his head in disappointment.

  ‘Want?’ he asked, with an air of false incredulity. ‘Why, nothing.’

  On the mantelpiece, beneath a huge mirror, was a black marble bust in the Graeco-Roman style – a head swathed in laurel leaves. On the far wall was a grand portrait in oils framed in ornate gold-leaf plaster. It was of the same person, a foppish-looking man, this time in a ceremonial breastplate, armoured sleeves and with a pale-blue sash across his shoulder – a young fellow with sad, watery eyes, and an even sadder moustache. The painting looked Dutch… Flemish…

  It was the turn of the lavender man again. He was squatting down, still on his haunches. She saw now he had a fresh cut on his left cheek.

  ‘We do offer our most profuse apologies, Mrs Pointer,’ he added. ‘We didn’t mean for you to be inconvenienced…’

  Inconvenienced?

  ‘…But we had to be absolutely sure we had removed you from harm’s way.’

  Harm’s way?

  ‘There is important business to attend to. It is for your own safety.’

  She had only one thought.

  ‘Finch? Have you hurt Finch?’

  ‘My dear Mrs Pointer…’ smirked Chilcot, barely able to stifle another chuckle.

  Don’t mock me, you bastard.

  ‘…I do find it of peculiar yet fascinating interesting that you should place this man’s well-being above that of your own husband.’

  ‘Why? Edward?… What have you done…?’

  He tutted disapprovingly.

  ‘My dear Mrs Pointer. What kind of people do you think we are? As I understand it, Mr Pointer has just enjoyed a rather long lunch in a discreet restaurant off Buchanan Street, Glasgow… albeit in the company of someone you’d perhaps rather not wish to know of.’

  ‘How dare you!’

  He raised a palm, commanding silence.

  ‘Though I dare say he will be hurrying to London when informed by the police about your sudden absence.’

  ‘My absence?’

  ‘Your temporary absence,’ chipped in the lavender man.

  ‘…And Dr Ingo Finch,’ said Chilcot. ‘Since you ask…’

  He shook his head, as if giving up on an errant child.

  ‘…the only way to describe it is to say that he’s been making a bit of a fool of himself, poking around in affairs that a
re really none of his concern.’

  The chihuahua gave a little yap.

  ‘There, there, baby,’ Chilcot cooed and pulled out, from the pocket of his fur coat, a small wax bag. It appeared to contain slivers of fresh meat. The dog squeaked and yelped, licking its lips in excitement. He fed his ghastly pet a morsel and it gnawed on it eagerly.

  ‘We suspected that his more cavalier tendencies would come to the fore when we learned that you would be setting foot in England.’

  Added the lavender man: ‘It’s why we tried to steer him away from this whole business and, in particular, from you.’

  She felt an ice-cold shock of fear, sick to her stomach. Her breathing rasped, her throat suddenly constricted – not for what had been said but for what her eyes were now registering.

  Chilcot, the dog, the piece of meat. It was a human finger…

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Finch sat in the interrogation room at Scotland Yard – not in Scotland Yard at all any more, the Metropolitan Police’s headquarters having relocated just a short hop away to the Victoria Embankment and the red and white brick Gothic building of ‘New’ Scotland Yard.

  He wondered about the propensity of an address to become synonymous with its business – Downing Street, Whitehall, Fleet Street, Wall Street… He had forced himself into such mental diversions to stave off the all-consuming worry that had paralysed his insides… Annie.

  En route, in another rattling Ford, all protestations about her abduction had fallen on deaf ears. Indeed, they had met with a resounding silence… indifference. And, part of the interrogation ‘game’, he imagined, it also accounted for the fact that nothing much had been said since they had arrived here either.

  The room was windowless and airless, the walls a faded pale green – the kind of shade, he knew, from his knowledge of human psychology, that was supposed to engender a feeling of impermanence, of discomfort, of not wanting to linger.

  He sat at a worn table with two empty chairs opposite. Above him on a frayed flex, a lone light bulb buzzed. There was, on the far wall, a large mirror – from previous experience, two-way, he knew. It had grubby curtains either side, a giveaway.

  His head hurt, his wrist hurt, his knee hurt. But it was nothing compared with the pain of carrying the weight of Annie’s plight.