He stepped into a long, narrow room. It needed dusting, but some attempt had been made to keep it neat and tidy. A venetian blind brought a splash of plastic colour to the grey wall containing the only window, while a worn square of carpet spattered rather than splashed the floorboards with a leafy pattern which had made the sad transition from bright spring to the dank end of autumn. The furnishings offered few maintenance problems. They consisted of a table and two folding chairs which looked as if they had been stolen from a church hall. On the table was a neat pile of unopened mail.
In the good days, this had probably been a secretary/receptionist’s office. Now, Goldsmith suspected, whatever time you called, the secretary was always out for lunch, or tea, or posting letters, or off, sick.
He crossed the carpet in two paces and rapped at the inner door. Again there was no answer, but the door was ajar.
He pushed it open. A faint, acrid smell tickled his nose and he sneezed.
This room was luxurious compared with the other. It contained a desk, a swivel chair, an armchair, two filing cabinets, curtains at the window and an Indian rug on the floor.
It also contained Munro whom neither creaking floorboards nor squeaking door had been able to prevent from being taken unawares. He lay face down on the floor beside the desk. Round about his right foot were the remnants of a smashed coffee cup and saucer. It looked as if he had forgotten they were on the floor by his chair, had risen, trodden on them and pitched headlong forward. His right hand, stretched out as though to break his fall, was convulsively clenched round the double element of an unprotected electric fire. That was where the smell was coming from. The fire had been on. The switch was still down, though of course the fuse in the plug would have gone. But not before a lethal voltage had been pumped through the unfortunate man.
Goldsmith circled the body carefully. Munro was dead, that was clear. The one eye that was visible was open and a trickle of blood from his nose was dry and brown. The sight of another human being dead touched him, but stronger than the no-man-is-an-island sentiment was the there-is-a-tide-in-the-affairs-of-men certainty.
Munro dead was still dangerous. Whatever he had gathered together in the way of evidence – notes, photographs, documents etc.—must be hidden somewhere. Eventually someone would find Munro and call the police. And they as professional nosers would have a good look round.
Suddenly he remembered the pile of mail on the table in the outer office.
Someone had come in, picked it up (perhaps it had jammed under the door), put it on the table. Not Munro. He would have brought it through here. No, someone had already found Munro and … what? Phoned the police? Left without doing anything? Or perhaps phoned the police anonymously from a safe distance. In which case, at any moment … he turned, his instinct telling him to leave.
Close by someone moved. A tell-tale floorboard creaked. Not one of those outside on the stairs, but closer.
There was another door in the room. He stepped up to it and turned the handle.
Something resisted from the other side. He pressed his shoulder to the woodwork and pushed. The pressure from inside grew. Someone was pushing back and through the open door he caught a strong whiff of perfume.
‘Jennifer?’ he said, stopping pushing. ‘It’s me, Bill Goldsmith.’
There was a pause. Then slowly the door opened. It led into a small cloakroom with a lavatory and wash-basin.
Standing facing him was a woman, pale-faced but contained. At first he could not put a name to her.
‘Hello again, Mr Maxwell,’ she said.
It was Sandra Phillips.
They postponed explanations. Each recognized in the other a strong desire not to be found here, and it was also apparent that they were both looking for something they did not want anyone else to find. Neither was successful. The filing cabinets and the desk were the only things to be searched and these were all practically empty. Unless Munro had gone to the lengths of pulling up floorboards or excavating walls to create special hiding-places, the Housman file was not here.
Goldsmith knew it was impossible to look further without leaving evidence of the search. In any case, he doubted if Munro would have taken such precautions. And time was passing quickly. Nonetheless he hesitated about leaving empty-handed, though the woman was standing impatiently by the door.
The phone rang.
They both startled visibly, then looked at each other sheepishly, their features relaxing into half-smiles.
‘Time to go,’ said Goldsmith.
He took out his handkerchief and carefully rubbed everything he had touched.
‘The police have your prints?’ asked Sandra Phillips, raising her eyebrows.
‘Who knows?’
The job finished to his satisfaction, he followed her into the outer office. Cautiously she opened the door and peered on to the landing.
‘All right,’ she said.
‘Wait.’
He pointed to the letters on the table.
‘Did you put those there?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I picked them up as I came in.’
Quickly Goldsmith glanced through them. Bills, circulars, nothing private. He gave them a good rub with his handkerchief and after they had closed the door behind them, he pushed them ‘through the letter-box.
‘Thorough,’ she said. ‘As to the manner born.’
Outside he asked if she had a car. She shook her head and he took her to the Land-Rover.
‘Suppose I don’t want to go with you,’ she asked.
‘Your privilege.’
He climbed into the driving seat and said nothing as she got in beside him.
Later they drank weak coffee together in the restaurant of a large departmental store, chosen because the tables were far enough apart for private conversation.
‘Ladies first,’ he said.
‘You’re joking.’
‘All right. But you got there first.’
‘He was just as you saw him. It looks as if he slipped and fell against the fire. I was shocked, naturally. Then I heard you come in. I was frightened and hid.’
‘Naturally. What were you doing there, Miss Phillips?’
She stared at him out of her large, candid brown eyes. She was a striking woman, he thought. And smiled to himself as he recognized the accidental pun.
‘Why should I tell you that?’
‘So I’ll tell you when it’s my turn.’
‘Big deal. I’m a girl with a great lack of natural curiosity, Mr Maxwell. Or is it Goldsmith? I find it helps in my business.’
‘Prostitution?’
‘If you like.’
‘Of a special kind.’
She looked puzzled for a moment, then laughed, showing excellent teeth. She really did project a fine, healthy, outdoor image.
‘Oh yes. I’d forgotten. No, no. I’m adaptable. I give the customer what I think he needs.’
It took a moment for Goldsmith to grasp what she meant.
‘You mean, that morning …’
‘I mean I knew damn well Neil Housman wasn’t the kind to go around lashing out recommendations to all and sundry. You struck me as a chancer, someone who’d caught my name from Neil in his cups and thought he’d try his luck.’
‘So you thought it’d be funny to knock hell out of me with a cane?’
‘Why not? There’s been a mistake you said. So polite. I was splitting myself. Then those cops came and told me about Neil. I stopped laughing then. I don’t believe in coincidences. This is about Neil, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. Ultimately. You didn’t mention me to the police then?’
‘No. Why should I?’
‘I might have been dangerous.’
‘You didn’t look dangerous. But you’re right. I see that now. You might be.’
‘So tell me about Munro.’
This time she did not demur.
Housman, it appeared, visited her regularly when he was in London and Munro, having logged a
couple of visits and taken photographs of Housman’s arrivals and departures, had decided that more evidence would be useful. He had somehow got into the flat and bugged the main rooms. Naturally he had recorded not only Housman’s visits, but the visits of one or two other men also, and had had the curiosity and the industry to find out who they were.
‘Who were they?’ asked Goldsmith.
She looked at him coldly.
‘I’m selective and I’m expensive,’ she said. ‘My visitors get from me what they want. They also get confidentiality.’
Ten days earlier she had received some pieces of tape through the post. She had played them and recognized instantly how dangerous they were. A telephone call had followed. She had answered cautiously, wanting to find out all she could about this man. It appeared that Munro had recognized that tapes themselves were far from perfect blackmail levers, even when supported by documentation. The real impact would come from photographs, and encouraged by Sandra Phillips’s response on the phone, he had gradually during the course of three or four calls approached the point of inviting her partnership.
I think his first thought was to put the bite on me, you know, take a pimp’s cut without doing any of the work. Me, all I wanted to do was keep him off my customers.’
‘Very noble,’ said Goldsmith.
‘Us whores don’t understand irony,’ she said. ‘At my level, reliability in every sense is important. It wouldn’t matter that it wasn’t my fault; the slightest sniff of trouble and I’d be out of business, with a choice between retiring to Eastbourne on my savings or joining the short-time girls round the clubs. So, I led him on and finally arranged a meeting with him up here. I booked in at my hotel last night and found a note waiting for me, just a time and an address. Munro’s office it turned out to be. I got there early. I hoped there might be a chance to look around, but I wasn’t really bothered. Once I’d got him spotted, I’ve plenty of friends who would be happy to do me a favour.’
‘Perhaps one of them did,’ suggested Goldsmith.
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘No one knew. And all I wanted were those tapes and anything else he had. No violence. Anyway, it was an accident.’
‘So it would appear.’
He finished his coffee and glanced at his watch.
‘I must be going,’ he said.
‘Hold on! It’s your turn. You weren’t there just to read the meter either!’
‘No.’ He looked at her speculatively. ‘Look, it’s simple. Munro was trying to blackmail a friend of mine. I went round to sort things out. OK?’
‘Mister, compared with that, you’ve had the story of my life!’
‘How long are you staying in Sheffield?’ he asked.
‘How long would you stay if you didn’t have to?’
‘All right.’ He grinned at her. ‘Give me your London number. I think I may be able to sort all this out with no further bother, and get your tapes back. Just sit tight and go on as before till you hear from me. A couple of days, that’s all.’
She lit a cigarette and stared at him through the smoke.
‘What do you know that I don’t?’ she asked.
‘Confidentiality is a virtue in all kinds of business,’ he replied. ‘Remember, do nothing.’
He looked back as he paid for their coffee at the cashdesk on the way out. She had put the cigarette out already. It had been some kind of stage-prop. He raised his hand as he left, but she did not reply.
When he reached his Land-Rover, he realized that he had made no attempt to discover what, if anything, she really did know about Housman’s origins. For the moment, it just did not seem important.
CHAPTER XVII
FINDING MUNRO DEAD had been a shock for more than one reason. Like Sandra Phillips, he didn’t believe in coincidence. He had not been lying to her when he said that he hoped to get hold of her tapes. Almost certainly these would be with the Housman stuff and that was what he wanted to get his hands on. But before he put himself at risk by discovering where Munro’s private residence was and attempting a search there, he was first going to make sure that the journey was really necessary.
He was heading for Greenmansion.
This morning the house looked sad, like a beached ship. The recent bad weather had torn many of the leaves from the trees and they patterned the lawn with drifts and curls like the seaweed and flotsam left by a retreating tide. He recalled that Jennifer had claimed she would be busy most of the weekend and when he rang the bell, its distant tinkle seemed swallowed instantly by emptiness. He didn’t bother to ring again but was turning away when the door opened.
‘Hello,’ said Dora.
‘Hello,’ he said.
She looked at him very seriously.
‘I was practising the piano,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry if I’ve disturbed you. I didn’t hear you playing.’
‘I wasn’t actually pressing the notes down,’ she explained. ‘It gives you greater delicacy of touch.’
She produced the phrase as though the words were inseparable.
‘I suppose it must. But how do you know you’re playing the right notes?’
‘You hear them inside your head.’
‘Is your mother in?’ was the best reply he could produce.
‘No. Uncle Rodney called and took her out.’
‘Did he now? And they’ve left you alone?’
‘Not really. My friend Anabelle is ten today and her father is taking a party of us swimming and then we’re going to have lunch. They’re going to pick me up on the way. Mummy told me not to open the door to anyone else, but I saw it was you.’
‘Well, thank you. May I come in?’
She stood aside and he stepped into the hall. He disliked taking advantage of the girl’s being alone in the house, but ultimately it would save everyone a great deal of embarrassment if a quick look around revealed that Munro’s Housman file had been retrieved. What it would tell him about Jennifer, he did not care to contemplate, but at least it would avoid the certainties of confrontation.
How old is Uncle Rodney?’ he asked, partly to make conversation and partly to try to still the twinges of jealousy he felt once again.
‘Oh, let me see. Much older than you.’
It was said in a manner which put his own age at some unimaginable extreme of antiquity, but it was a comfort for all that.
How soon will your friend be here?’
‘She’s late already. She’s very bad at time. Would you like to do a hand-print while you’re here?’
‘That would be nice.’
She led him upstairs, talking all the while with a self-possessed courtesy obviously imitative of her mother, but with enough of herself in it to avoid mere parody.
When they reached the door on the first-floor landing which led to the attic stairs, Goldsmith paused.
‘I’ll just pop into the bathroom,’ he said. ‘You go on and get the paint ready.’
‘All right,’ she agreed.
He waited till he heard her reach the top of the stairs then moved along the landing, pushing open doors till he found the master bedroom. If the file were hidden anywhere, this seemed the most likely spot. Housman probably had a safe somewhere in the house, but his own (admittedly limited) experience of women led him to believe that when it came to hiding things, they would rely on their own ingenuity rather than masculine strongholds.
He went quickly round the room. The animal-pelt coverlet was still in use. That apart, the room’s atmosphere was almost wholly feminine and he wondered whether this had evolved since, or predated, Housman’s death. The dressing table, wardrobe and tallboy produced nothing. He felt like a nasty old man as he ran his fingers through the neatly folded underclothes in the scented drawers, but he had to admit to a certain gentle stimulus.
He was down on his knees looking under the mattress when Dora came into the room.
‘Couldn’t you find the bathroom?’ she asked.
‘Yes. I’m sorry,�
�� he said, standing up quickly and feeling an unfamiliar flush surging up his cheeks. ‘This door was open and I saw a beetle.’
It was a feeble story but Dora took it in her stride.
‘Did you catch it?’ she asked.
‘No. I’m afraid it got away.’
‘Under the mattress?’
I don’t know. I just thought I’d look.’
‘I suppose it could be among the bedclothes,’ she said calmly. ‘Are you ready for your hand-print yet?’
Meekly he let himself be ushered upstairs.
‘I’m afraid I can’t offer you a choice of colours,’ she said. ‘I’m trying to keep a balance and it has to be red.’
She had prepared a mix of red poster-colour in a shallow dish.
‘Pull back your sleeve,’ she said professionally. Otherwise it might get on your jacket. Now dip your hand in and make sure you get it all over the fingers and palm. You have to kneel on the bed, but I’ve put a bit of newspaper down in case you drip. Are you ready?’
‘I think so,’ said Goldsmith, lifting his hand from the dish and examining it.
Outside a horn blew. Dora went into the jungle alcove and looked out of the window.
‘Bother. Here’s Anabella now. I’ll have to go, her father’s very impatient. Can you finish by yourself? On the bottom row next to Uncle Rodney’s. ‘Bye.’
She smiled at him and left the room. He heard her running down the stairs, and shortly afterwards the front door slammed and a car revved up, then moved off down the drive.
Goldsmith glanced at his watch. This was a piece of luck. He had a good half-hour before he needed to head back north to face the Selection Board. Time for a good poke round, but first he had better leave his hand-print.
He knelt on the bed and examined the pattern. Each print had the name of its maker written in a clear childish hand beneath it. Top left was a small delicate outline which he was sure he would have picked out as Jennifer’s without the neat inscription. And next to it was a larger hand; broad palmed; strong, nervous fingers; marked Daddy. He thought of the letter now on its way to Maxwell and frowned. For the first time he found himself hoping positively that the man would prove not to be Hebbel. Whatever that might do to his own peace of mind, it would leave Dora untouched by the poison.
A Very Good Hater Page 15