CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Rachel places a plate bearing a sardine sandwich on the chair next to Charles’s third cup of instant coffee and sits on the edge of the bed, watching him work. Charles lies on his front, poring over the notebooks, making notes on a sheaf of blank pages torn from the current one. Rachel’s glance lingers on his broad shoulders and the curly hair at the nape of his neck. Every time he finishes a notebook, he reaches over and drops it onto the growing pile on the floor beside the bed, and Rachel studies the muscles under his white shirt as they ripple, like the uncoiling of a huge snake.
Charles picks up the next notebook and checks the date and number. Then he reaches over to the remaining pile and fans them out, running his finger across the neat numbers written in black ink in the top right-hand corner of each cover.
‘There’s a gap,’ he concludes. ‘At the end of 1960. Is there any chance you missed one or two?’
Rachel shakes her head. ‘No. The shelf was empty when I left.’
Charles checks the numbers again. ‘Well, there’s definitely … one … two missing.’
‘Could they be anywhere else?’
‘Not that far back. November 1960…’ Charles swings his leg round and sits upright. ‘What was I doing at the end of 1960?’ He shrugs. ‘Never mind, there’s plenty here.’
Rachel stands. ‘I know you’ve a lot to do, Charlie, and nowhere else to do it. But I have to go to sleep. It’s almost two.’
Charles looks up from his notes. ‘Is it really? I’d not realised the time.’
‘I don’t know how you can concentrate when you’re so tired.’
‘I’m used to it. “Burning the midnight oil” they call it at the Bar. I do it once or twice a week.’ He looks up at her, and then at the bed littered with notebooks. ‘Ah, I see.’
‘Yes. It poses a problem. Would you be able to work on the floor just using the bedside lamp?’
‘I should think so.’
‘Then I’m going to get changed in the bathroom and go to bed.’
Charles looks around and realises there’s nowhere for him to sleep but the floor. ‘Right. I’ll be fine on the floor,’ he offers, standing.
‘I have no spare bedding.’
‘I’ll manage. It’s not cold.’
‘Well … Charlie, look … it’s a big bed, and I’m only little. Once you finish, I have no problem with you getting in … but…’
‘Of course. On my honour.’
‘I know what lots of people are getting up to nowadays, but … I’m not one of them. Nice Jewish girl, remember?’
‘Understood.’
‘Got enough coffee to keep you awake?’
Charles picks up the jar, bought from a corner shop on their return journey to the bedsit, and shakes it. ‘Plenty.’
He finishes at almost 4 a.m. He undresses, looks at Rachel in the bed, and replaces his underpants. He slips into bed beside her, careful to disturb her as little as possible. She started on one side of the bed but has since migrated to the centre, so Charles lies as close to the edge as possible, curling his body into the same shape as hers so they won’t accidentally touch. His face is only inches from the back of her head. Her short dark hair fans over the pillow and the moonlight from the un-curtained window illuminates her slim shoulder protruding from the sheet. It looks unnaturally white. Charles watches it rise and fall with her regular breathing. He is suddenly conscious of the fact that, for the first time in years, he is sharing a bed with someone other than Henrietta. Rachel is a stranger — lovely, desirable and astonishingly generous — but a stranger nonetheless, and Charles is suddenly overwhelmed by waves of loss. His breath catches painfully in his throat as a sob rises in his chest. He slides his legs back out from under the covers to sit on the edge of the bed, his feet hard against the cold lino and his body rigid as he tries not to disturb the sleeping woman behind him.
Hot silent tears spill down his cheeks as, for the first time, he allows himself to be overborne by waves of loss, fear and dislocation. He cries silently, his huge shoulders shaking uncontrollably. He feels a cool hand on the back of his neck.
‘Lie down,’ says Rachel softly. Charles shakes his head vigorously but can’t trust himself to speak. ‘Lie down,’ she commands again.
Charles does as he’s told, facing away from her, knees drawn up to his chest. He feels Rachel’s body as she curls into his and strokes his hair.
‘Hush,’ she whispers.
As Rachel’s soft hand strokes, Charles’s sobs gradually become less frequent. She listens to his breathing becoming lighter, and after a few minutes he is asleep.
She moves away slightly and props herself up on her hand, staring at the stranger in her bed. Charles turns over, still asleep, and now lies on his back, his muscled arm hanging out of the bed. Rachel notices for the first time his dark curly eyelashes, almost as long as a girl’s. Her eye travels down his neck to the rise and fall of his enormous barrel chest with its central patch of black curls. Rachel has has boyfriends in the past — she’s no virgin — but they were boys compared to this powerful, very masculine man. She’s tempted to lean over and kiss his full lips as he sleeps, but she resists. She knows how exhausted he is and, despite his apparent confidence, how frightened. She divines that the one relationship in which this man has placed all of his trust, his relationship with the law, has failed him, and it’s that as much as losing his wife that’s left him completely disorientated. She also knows what might follow if she succumbs to the temptation to place a kiss on those lips, and she’s not sure how she would feel about that. As she reminds herself, within days he’ll probably be in prison, maybe even sentenced to hang. She believes Charles is innocent — she trusts her own judgment of people — but even she can see how the case against him looks impregnable. It’s plain foolish to become romantically involved with someone in his position. She lies down again and settles herself once more to sleep.
Some hours later, Charles’s eyes open and he is suddenly and completely awake. It is still night, but there is now a blue tinge to the dark rectangle of the window which heralds the dawn. He reaches over gently, feeling for his watch on the floor beside the bed. Rachel stirs, turns towards him sleepily and jumps, her eyes also now wide open.
‘Sorry!’ she says. ‘I’d forgotten you were here.’
Charles smiles. ‘It must be really weird waking up to find a hunted man in your bed. I’d do the same if our roles were reversed. What time is it?’
Rachel leans over the edge of the bed to look at an alarm clock also on the floor. Charles watches her nightie ride up and expose most of her buttocks.
‘Just gone six.’ She lies on her back and pulls the bedclothes up under her chin.
‘OK. I’ll get out of your way,’ says Charles, swinging his legs down and sitting up. ‘Can I use the bathroom?’
‘Yes; it’s directly opposite. I share with Nina in the attic room above, but she’s on nights this week. She won’t be back for an hour. Use the towels on the left.’
Charles leans over Rachel. ‘You’ve been wonderful, Rachel. Whatever happens … thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.’
She smiles. Then: ‘Oh, I’ve just remembered: you asked for some money. I haven’t got much, but there’s fifteen pounds in the sideboard drawer. I needed another seven and six for next month’s rent anyway, but I’m never going to find it, so you might as well have what I’ve saved.’
‘Thanks. I promise I’ll repay it.’
Their eyes lock again, and this time Rachel sits up and takes Charles’s head in her hands and kisses him hard on the lips. Then she shoves him away with a grin.
‘That’s all for now, Charlie. If you get out of this mess … then we’ll see.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Superintendent Wheatley is still seething at Holborne’s escape. Despite managing to persuade the Met and the City police to set up roadblocks at both half a mile and one-mile radii from Fetter Lane within twenty minutes,
somehow Holborne slipped through. It’s extremely frustrating, but Wheatley is confident that it’s no more than a temporary setback. An almost unrecognisable photograph of Holborne appeared on the television news that night, but the morning papers have something more recent splashed across the front pages, and it’s only a matter of time before someone recognises him. How long can a man like that survive on the run, with no money and no passport? Especially in such a high-profile case: a barrister and a Viscount’s daughter? It’s made for the tabloids! They’ll be running it for weeks, months probably.
So Wheatley has returned to the scene of the crime with seven officers who are now in the process of going through every scrap of paper in the place to build a picture of Holborne’s life. Usually within twenty-four hours they’d have a list of friends, acquaintances and contacts where he might have sought shelter. But — and this is odd — Holborne seems to have been almost completely unconnected. Enquiries with his parents and brother reveal reliably that he hasn’t been in touch with them for almost a decade, and all the contacts turned up at Putt Green are those of the wife. Wheatley begins to get the flavour of the Holbornes’ marriage and is not at all surprised it was failing. Holborne’s a loner and, as Wheatley assures himself, possessed of just the sociopathic profile he’d expect of a cold-blooded murderer.
It is Wheatley himself who happens to be at the foot of the stairs when the doorbell rings. He opens the front door to find a man in oily overalls on the doorstep.
‘Where’s the car, mate?’ asks the man cheerfully.
‘What car?’ asks Wheatley.
‘The Jag. I was told it’d be in the garage, but it ain’t.’
‘Who told you it would be in the garage?’
‘My guvnor. I’ve come to collect it.’
‘Can you explain please, sir? Who are you?’
‘Roger, from Breck & Co.’
‘Well, Roger from Breck & Co., who exactly asked you to collect the Jag?’
‘Look,’ says Roger, very patiently, because he was clearly dealing with an imbecile, ‘Mrs Holborne rings us up on Tuesday or Wednesday, or whenever it was, and says that the Jag won’t go and would we book it in for work, right?’
Wheatley glances swiftly over his shoulder and escorts the mechanic away from the front door. He walks him to the end of the drive, where a tow truck is parked next to one of the police vehicles, engine idling.
‘Go on.’
‘Well, we were so busy that we couldn’t do it till today. My foreman asks me to come and collect the car and leave a courtesy car, which I have. Over there.’
Wheatley looks across the road where another man stands by the open door of a grubby Ford Anglia.
‘But the Jag isn’t there,’ concludes Roger.
‘OK,’ replies Wheatley. ‘We have the Jaguar and it’s now important evidence in an investigation. So it won’t need repairing.’
‘What about the Anglia?’
‘Didn’t you watch TV last night?’
Roger shakes his head. ‘We ain’t got one.’
‘OK. Well, Mrs Holborne won’t be requiring the Anglia, thank you very much.’
‘I can go then?’
‘Yes. One thing less for you to do today.’
‘Suits me.’
Roger walks across the road to tell his colleague, who gets back in the Anglia, and starts up. Roger climbs back in the tow truck and the two vehicles depart. Wheatley watches them disappear. It might mean nothing — cars, especially Jags, do develop intermittent faults — but Wheatley isn’t going to waste police resources investigating a peripheral issue. Even if — most especially if — it might confirm Holborne’s story that he couldn’t have driven off after the murder.
Charles steps out of Covent Garden Tailors, having spent over half of Rachel’s loan. He now wears narrow Hepworth trousers, a white cotton shirt with a narrow black tie, a boxy black leather jacket, and a trilby. With his new Mod haircut and his big-framed glasses containing clear glass he looks like a darker version of Michael Caine. He pauses to look at his reflection in a shop window. Those who know him well would have no difficulty recognising him on a second look, but he looks sufficiently different from the photograph on the front pages of the newspapers that he should be able to move undetected around London, as long as he’s careful. He pulls his collar up, lowers the hat over his brow and heads towards the Strand.
It takes Charles fifteen minutes to reach the corner of Fetter Lane and Fleet Street. He enters Oyez, the legal stationers on the corner, and while pretending to read one of the law books, observes the entrance to his apartment for a few minutes. A single bored police officer stands by the door. He wears the dark blue uniform of the City of London Police, which probably means he knows little about the case, but Charles isn’t going to take any chances; he waits.
After ten minutes, Charles realises he’ll have to move. The shop assistants have been glancing in his direction for a while and he can’t afford to raise suspicions. He returns the book to the shelf but, as he’s about to leave the shop, the front door of the block opens and Dennis appears. Charles turns his back slightly as the concierge walks past him on the other side of the window. Charles calls “Thank you” to the shop assistants, opens the door and follows.
Dennis has a small paper bag in his hand and a newspaper under his arm. He dodges the traffic on Fleet Street and walks into the Temple through Sergeant’s Inn gate. Charles follows him past the Clachan pub, along Kings Bench Walk and out of the Tudor Street exit. Dennis jogs through the traffic on the Embankment, sits on a bench overlooking the Thames, opens the newspaper on his lap and takes a sandwich from the paper bag. As he eats, he follows the progress of a large launch cruising past him on its way downstream. Charles crosses the road behind Dennis, puts his hand in his jacket pocket and creeps up silently behind the bench. He places his leather-covered finger on the back of Dennis’s neck.
‘If you move a single inch, Dennis, I’m going to blow your fucking head off. Do you recognise my voice?’
Dennis chokes on cheese and pickle and it takes him a few seconds to answer.
‘Yes, Mr Holborne, sir.’
‘Don’t turn round. Just carry on watching the boats and listen carefully. I have a few questions. That blonde woman who you saw coming in and going out of my flat.’
‘Miss Maxwell?’
‘You know her name? OK. Did you ever see her arrive?’ Dennis nods, the sandwich clutched tightly in his right hand. ‘Did you notice a car?’
‘Yeah. A big gold Mercedes.’
Charles raises his voice to be heard above two buses thundering past behind them. ‘Did she arrive alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Never saw anyone with her?’
‘No.’
‘Did you ever speak to her?’
‘Once, when I helped with her shopping.’
‘Explain.’
‘She had stuff for the flat, you know, lampshades an’ all. An’ that enormous teddy or whatever it was. I kept an eye on the car while she went up and down cos otherwise she’d’ve gotta ticket.’
‘I don’t suppose you remember the registration number, do you?’
‘I do actually. It was flash: NF 777.’
Charles raises his eyebrows in surprise, finding a new respect for his observant porter. ‘Do you know anything else about her?’
‘No, honest, Mr Holborne, not a thing. I’d tell you if I did.’
‘OK, Dennis. Now, listen to me very carefully indeed.’ He waits for a lorry to pass behind them before continuing. ‘You know they say I killed my wife, don’t you?’
Dennis nods.
‘The police reports don’t say how I’m supposed to have done it.’ Charles pauses for effect. ‘My wife’s throat was cut from ear to ear. Her head was hanging by a thread of skin.’
Charles sees the man’s hands trembling in his lap.
‘If you say one word, I will come back and do to you exactly what I did to her. Do you understand?’
Dennis nods again, vigorously.
‘Got your house keys on you?’
‘I think so.’ He pats his jacket pocket. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Your Brenda lives in Westcliffe, doesn’t she? So as soon as you finish your lunch, you’re going to take a two-week holiday to visit her and the baby. If anyone asks, the stress of what’s happened has been a bit much. Don’t go back to Fetter Lane. Go straight home and pack a bag and get the next train to Westcliffe. Make it a nice surprise, and don’t tell her anything, either. Do you completely understand what I’ve said?’
‘Yeah, sir, really, I do!’
‘Tell me.’
‘I’m gonna finish me sandwich and go back to Poplar, pack a bag and go visit my girl in Westcliffe. I’m gonna say nothing to no one about this conversation or seein’ you. If I do, you’ll … you’ll come back and…’
‘Exactly. Remember, Dennis, I’m facing the rope for one murder anyway. They can’t hang me twice. So I’ve nothing to lose.’
‘Yeah, I geddit.’
‘Right. I’m going to go now. I want you to wait there without moving for five minutes. I’ll be watching. You just finish your lunch and read the football results.’
‘Got it.’
‘Oh, and while I’m here, did the Hammers win last night?’
‘No. They lost two nil.’
‘Bad day all round,’ says Charles quietly, and he runs back across the road, leaving Dennis still talking through the match to himself.
Charles walks swiftly into the basement car park at Shoe Lane and locates the old Austin Healey. He hasn’t got around to registering it in his name so, other than Simon Ellison, no one in the world knows he owns it, and Ellison’s out of town on a case.
Breaking in is no difficulty; he just lifts the corner of the soft top and opens the driver’s door from the inside, but how to start it? The keys were at Fetter Lane and have now surely been seized by the police. During the Blitz he and his cousin Izzy hot-wired vehicles on a couple of occasions, but that was twenty years earlier. Even if he could remember how they did it, car wiring must surely have changed in the interim.
The Brief: Crime and corruption in 1960s London (Charles Holborne Legal Thrillers) Page 17