The Marx Sisters

10

Kathy felt good the next morning as she drove over to Scotland Yard to pick up Brock for their trip to the coast, as if she were escaping from school for the day. But before they set off there was one chore to be done. She parked at the north end of Jerusalem Lane and the two of them walked over to the camera shop on the corner. Fluorescent pink posters stuck to the grubby shop front announced a closing-down sale.

‘Mr Witz?’

‘That’s me.’ He came out from behind his counter towards them.

‘We’re police officers, investigating the death of Mrs Winterbottom.’

‘I thought so.’ He smiled affably at them. ‘I already told your detective what I was doing at the time.’

‘Yes. You were in church.’

He beamed. ‘At my niece’s wedding in Northwood, twenty miles away, taking the wedding photographs. You want to see the pictures?’ He was teasing her.

‘No, thank you. We’d like some information on a quarrel between Mrs Winterbottom and the Kowalskis next door. Concerning his past in Poland during the war.’

‘Who’s been telling you that rubbish?’ He was suddenly angry. With his pink cheeks and white hair growing in big tufts around, and out of, his ears, he looked like a burly and malignant little gnome. ‘There was no quarrel, just a small misunderstanding, which some busybody women in this street like to blow up for mischief.’

‘Who?’

‘Ach!’ He turned on his heel and stamped back to his place behind the counter.

‘Believe me,’ he waggled his finger at them, ‘you’re wasting your time if you think Adam Kowalski, or anyone else for that matter, would kill Mrs Winterbottom for such a stupid reason.’

‘Wasn’t that the reason the Kowalskis were selling up?’

‘What?’ He looked at her incredulously. ‘Of course not! Adam sold his place on the same day I sold mine, and for the same reason, because it is time to retire, and take things easy. He should have done it long ago.’

As they turned to go, Kathy suddenly stopped and asked him, ‘Can you recall anyone around here who wears a bow tie, Mr Witz? Someone who visits, someone’s relative maybe?’

He shook his head, still grouchy. ‘Bow ties aren’t that unusual. But I don’t remember anyone special.’

‘All right. Thanks for your help.’

He shook their hands with a better grace.

‘When did you both sell, Mr Witz?’ Brock asked.

‘Back in February. It was a sunny day like today when Adam finally made up his mind.’ The gnome snorted. ‘But it took him another three or four months before he finally managed to get permission from that Marie to come to the pub with me to celebrate.’

He suddenly frowned and scratched his ear.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘That’s funny. That day… when he was about to close up the shop to go out to celebrate, Adam had to serve a customer. I remember how impatient it made me, waiting outside in the Lane. And I remember the man was wearing a bow tie.’

Kathy’s spirits rose the further they got from central London. It was a bright, clear day, the sun gleaming off the paintwork of cars, sparkling off their chrome. As they got closer to the sea, the sky became imperceptibly more brilliant, lightened by reflection from the sheet of water which lay ahead. Kathy took a pair of sunglasses from her shoulder bag and put them on. It was the sort of day that always seemed to come towards the end of the summer holidays when she was a child, glowing and bright, made achingly poignant by the knowledge of the dark autumn, dark suburbs and dark school to which she must inevitably return.

Brock was in good form, chatting amiably about the eccentricities of his colleagues and his computers, and then, when they were past Tunbridge Wells and into the woods and farmlands of the Sussex Weald, lapsing into silence as they absorbed the unfamiliar scenery. The Kowalskis had bought a small house on the east side of Eastbourne, on the Pevensey road. A two-storey semidetached on a 1930s estate. Its upper storey enjoyed a limited view eastward down the English Channel, towards the Strait of Dover. Severely pruned rose bushes struggled in beds on the small patch of lawn. Mrs Kowalski opened the front door.

‘Good morning.’ Brock beamed. ‘Splendid day! We phoned yesterday from London. Metropolitan Police.’

She glared suspiciously at them, and they felt obliged to produce their warrant cards. She led them into the front room.

Mrs Kowalski was a small, peppery woman who appeared to be highly protective of her husband. ‘What do you want to see him for?’ she shot at them as soon as they sat down.

‘Perhaps we could explain when he arrives. Is he not at home?’ Kathy, her good mood broken by the woman’s antagonism, spoke with careful politeness.

‘He can’t walk. He’s hurt his foot. He’s upstairs and can’t come down. Ask me your questions.’

‘Perhaps we could go upstairs to him, then,’ Kathy persisted. They faced each other in obstinate silence for a moment, until Mrs Kowalski snorted and got to her feet.

‘Come, then.’

The front upstairs room was furnished as a small sitting room, which became uncomfortably overcrowded with the four of them in it. Adam Kowalski was seated in a cane chair by the window, which had a shallow bow front and was hung with heavy dark curtains. Beside him stood a telescope trained at the shimmering sea on which hovered several long grey ships. The gauntness of his frame was emphasized by the length of his right leg which stuck out stiffly to one side, the foot encased in plaster. As Brock and Kathy entered the room, he tried to struggle to his feet and the newspaper on his lap slid to the floor.

‘Don’t get up, don’t get up.’ Brock went over and shook his hand, despite an attempt at a blocking move from Mrs Kowalski.

The two visitors sat together on a sofa while Mrs Kowalski positioned herself on an upright chair between them and her husband.

‘You follow the shipping movements up the Channel, then?’ Brock indicated the page of the newspaper lying on the floor.

‘Yes.’ Kowalski gave a faint smile. His eyes were rimmed with pink, and his skin was like pale, translucent parchment. He spoke slowly, with a scholarly precision. ‘The novelty of a view of the sea.’

‘We’ve never lived beside the sea,’ Mrs Kowalski broke in. She seemed to feel it necessary to underscore his account with her own more combative statements. ‘That’s why we came here. A complete change. Why not? It’s what we’ve always dreamt of.’

Kathy looked around at the awkwardly furnished room. ‘What did you do to your foot, sir?’ she asked, hoping to return the conversation to Adam Kowalski.

‘ He didn’t do anything to it,’ his wife intervened once again. ‘It was that clumsy son of ours who dropped a box of books on it and broke a bone.’

‘It was a small accident.’ Kowalski fluttered long fingers to mollify her bad temper. ‘But painful.’ He smiled bravely at their visitors.

‘Would that have been at the weekend, then, sir?’

He frowned. ‘Yes.’

‘Perhaps I should explain why we’re here.’

‘About time,’ Mrs Kowalski said crossly.

‘Did you know that Mrs Winterbottom in Jerusalem Lane died on Sunday?’

This stunned Mrs Kowalski into silence. She turned and looked at her husband, as if to see from his face whether he knew and could therefore be accused of not keeping her informed. But there was no sign of foreknowledge. In fact, no sign of anything.

‘The circumstances of her death aren’t clear at the moment, and so the police were called in. We are interviewing everybody we can find who was in the area of Jerusalem Lane between the hours of 2 and 4.15 last Sunday afternoon. We understand that applies to you, Mr Kowalski.’

‘You mean… somebody killed her?’ Mrs Kowalski spoke in hushed tones, her eyes round.

‘We’re not sure yet.’

‘But why else are you involved? Oh, my God! Meredith Winterbottom!’

‘You had no idea about this, sir?’ Kathy inquired.

‘Of course he didn’t. Are you blind?’

Kathy bit her tongue, and turned to Brock. ‘Sir, the news has probably been a bit of a shock. Maybe if you and Mrs Kowalski went and made some tea…’

Mrs Kowalski looked with horror at the big frame of Brock. ‘I stay here!’

‘Marie,’ Adam Kowalski said wearily, ‘we must be hospitable to our guests. They have come all the way from London. Make a cup of tea

… please.’

Grumbling, his wife left the room.

‘She means well,’ Kowalski said without much conviction to Brock, who stayed where he was. Then, turning to Kathy, he said, ‘No. I didn’t know. I’m sorry for the lady, and for her sisters.’

‘Could you tell us what you were doing in London?’

‘We went up to clear the last of the stuff from my shop. We actually sold it about six months ago, but the new owners allowed us time to remove the stock. They said they weren’t ready to let the place again yet, so they didn’t mind as long as I was responsible for insurance of the contents.’

‘Excuse me, sir, you said “we went up”. Was your wife with you in Jerusalem Lane, too?’

‘Yes, we both went.’ Kowalski shifted his gaze around the room as he spoke, avoiding eye contact. Every so often he would look at the window, as if considering an escape out into the sunlit morning. ‘We’d arranged to sell the last boxes of books to a dealer in North London, so Marie and I went up to town on the train last Saturday and stayed overnight with our son, Felix, in Enfield, and then he helped us sort and pack on Sunday morning and load up the van he had hired. We delivered the boxes to the dealer, and then returned to the shop to tidy up. Then we went to the station and caught the train home. We left the shop at about 4, because I remember we worked out that that would give us plenty of time to catch the 4.46.’

‘So your son was also in the area on Sunday afternoon?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you remember seeing anyone, anyone at all, in Jerusalem Lane between, say, noon and 4 that afternoon?’

Kowalski thought, his eyes travelling back to the window. Eventually he shook his head. ‘No, we were in the back room of the shop for most of the time till 1 and then we left, and returned around 2.30, I should think. I don’t remember seeing anyone in Jerusalem Lane. It’s very quiet on a Sunday afternoon.’

‘A man in a bow tie?’

He shook his head.

‘Do you remember ever seeing a man wearing a bow tie in the area?’

Kowalski shrugged. ‘No.’

‘A customer, in your shop? About two or three months ago?’

He looked startled. His eyes darted to Kathy and then veered away again quickly when he saw her staring intently at him. ‘Oh. A customer, you say? Well, you may be right, I do seem to recall… Was there something special about him you were interested in?’

‘Just tell us about him, please, Mr Kowalski.’

The pale skin of Kowalski’s head coloured slightly. ‘I do seem to remember a customer with a spotted black and white bow tie, some time ago. I think… that he came back later, perhaps.’ He looked hesitantly at her.

She nodded, as if she knew this. ‘Go on.’

‘Oh, six or seven weeks ago, I’d say.’

‘What was his name?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know.’ His expression had become vague.

‘What did he want?’

‘Well, I seem to remember that he bought something the first time.’

‘And the second?’

‘I’m not sure. I think not.’

‘If he did buy something the first time, you might have his name on your books?’

Kowalski looked doubtful. ‘Oh, I don’t think so, not unless he particularly wanted me to look out for something for him.’

‘But if he used a credit card?’

‘I wouldn’t have a record of that now.’

‘Well, could you describe him?’

‘No, I don’t think so. I just remember the bow tie.’

‘Young, old? Tall, fat?’

‘Youngish, I think.’ He shook his head, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t really remember.’ He was becoming slightly flustered. He seemed to search in his mind for something to give her, to satisfy her. ‘When he came in the first time he was looking for something… travel, no… art

… No-architecture books, that was it, architecture books.’

‘And you sold him some?’

He shook his head. ‘I’m not sure.’

His wife bustled back into the room, carrying a tray with four cups of milky instant coffee.

‘You like sugar?’ she asked Kathy, thrusting a cup at her.

‘No, thank you.’

‘Well, don’t stir it, then.’

Her husband’s gaze shifted uncomfortably away back to the window.

She answered Kathy’s questions about their visit to Jerusalem Lane curtly, confirming her husband’s account. Like him, she could remember seeing no one in the area, and she knew of no one who wore a bow tie. She hadn’t been in the shop when the man her husband remembered had called.

‘I wouldn’t say anything against the departed’-Mrs Kowalski’s thinking had evidently moved on while she had been in the kitchen-‘but it doesn’t really surprise me.’

‘Oh?’ Brock prompted mildly.

‘She could drive you mad, that woman.’

Her husband opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off. ‘Oh, Adam won’t say it, but she nearly drove him into the grave last year, spreading vicious stories about him. He nearly had a break-down. Our friends tried to persuade her to stop. Felix spoke to her. But she was so stubborn! Wouldn’t be told. It was one of the reasons we began to think about leaving the Lane. Oh yes, I can quite imagine she could have driven somebody to do something desperate!’

‘Your family had a serious quarrel with her, then?’ Kathy asked.

‘No, no,’ Adam Kowalski broke in anxiously. ‘She had meant to help me. It was all most unfortunate. She dragged up things from the past which were best forgotten. She didn’t understand what she was doing.’

‘She wouldn’t be told! She was a stubborn old busybody who liked to organize other people’s lives.’

‘Marie!’ her husband protested. ‘She’s dead!’

Mrs Kowalski snorted and lifted her coffee cup to her mouth. When she returned it to the saucer, she raised her chin defiantly, her pose of righteous indignation somewhat spoiled by a skin of milk sticking to her upper lip.

‘When was the last time either of you had any contact with Mrs Winterbottom?’ Kathy asked.

Mr Kowalski shook his head. His wife said, ‘It was months ago. I don’t think we could have exchanged words since Easter.’

‘Didn’t you say goodbye to them when you left the Lane?’

‘No. There was a little farewell party for us in the Croatia Club, but they didn’t come.’

‘What is the Croatia Club, Mrs Kowalski?’

‘Oh, it’s just a social club which people started years ago, when we first came to the Lane. It wasn’t only for Yugoslavs-that was just a name. It was for anyone in the Lane who wanted to have a chat or play a game of cards. It has a room over the Balaton.’

‘Does everyone in the Lane belong?’

‘No, no. In recent years not so many people go any more. People have left or passed away, you know.’

‘Who came to your party?’

‘Oh, the Bolls, Mr Witz, Brunhilde Capek, Dr Botev for a while. I don’t know, people came and went.’

‘Mrs Rosenfeldt?’

‘No, she wasn’t there.’

‘Did Mrs Winterbottom discuss you selling your property, or talk about selling her own?’

Both the Kowalskis looked surprised. ‘Oh no,’ Adam said. ‘I’m sure she wouldn’t do that.’ He smiled confidentially, modestly pleased with himself. ‘We were approached to sell, along with Konrad Witz, by someone who wanted to combine our two properties into one. We got a good price, you know, but the buyer asked us to keep it to ourselves, about selling, for as long as possible. We didn’t tell anyone we were going until a month or so ago. Certainly not Meredith.’

Kathy put her half-finished cup down. ‘Well, we’ve taken up enough of your time. If you remember anything else, you will call us, won’t you? Here’s my card. And we’ll need to talk to your son. Can you give us his address and telephone number?’

Adam Kowalski wrote down his son’s details on Kathy’s pad. ‘He’s a lecturer at the London Polytechnic. Probably he could speak to you after work. Maybe in the shop. He still has the key.’

‘Yes, we’ll arrange something. It must have been difficult for you moving books with your hurt foot.’

‘Fortunately we had nearly loaded the van.’ Kowalski smiled ruefully. ‘Felix was inside, pushing the boxes around to make room, and one of them fell off the back on to my foot. It was very painful, but I thought it was just bruised until I went to the doctor on Monday and he made me get an X-ray and they found one of the little bones was broken. So, I shall be stuck here for a few days.’

‘Weeks more likely, old fool,’ his wife muttered.

Kathy took a deep breath of fresh air when they reached their car. Seagulls wheeled in the sun overhead, the air pungent with salt and seaweed.

‘What a bitch. “Don’t stir it, then”!’

Brock laughed and turned the car to take the road inland to the A27.

‘He must have spent fifty years regretting that he hadn’t handed her over to the Gestapo,’ she went on. ‘In her case at least they probably would have done the right thing.’

‘It’s appalling, isn’t it, how the Kowalskis’ whole life has been controlled by that moment, the decision to protect her. What else could he have done?’ Brock scratched his beard. ‘But then follow the years of betraying his students, losing his career, being forced out of Poland, and now being forced out of Jerusalem Lane. And odd too that it was she who let the secret out to Meredith.’

‘Yes, I must say that if I were Adam Kowalski and I were thinking of bumping somebody off, it would have been Marie Kowalski who wound up with a plastic bag over her head, not Meredith Winterbottom.’

They turned off the main road on the way back and stopped at a pub for lunch. Brock ordered pate, green salad and a tomato juice for Kathy, a pint of bitter and a ploughman’s lunch for himself. He poked at it when it arrived. ‘No ploughman ever survived on these scraps,’ he grumbled, pushing a lettuce leaf to one side. ‘Still, the beer’s quite good.’ He took a big gulp and licked his lips.

‘Yes, and I don’t suppose old Adam’s ever even had the opportunity to get a few brief moments of relief with some lady hairdresser in New Cross or whatever. Wife living over the shop, never letting him out of her sight. They probably developed the siege mentality back in Cracow and have been cultivating it ever since. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was responsible for dropping the box on his foot, to stop him straying out of her sight.’

Kathy spluttered into her tomato juice, laughing. ‘Oh, I thought you were saying yesterday that you couldn’t understand how anyone could be bothered to have an affair. Now you’re conceding that it might be a good idea in some circumstances.’

‘Not really.’ Brock toyed with the pint mug on the beer mat. ‘I believe that things badly begun end badly.’

‘Oh golly.’ Kathy stared at him, still smiling. ‘That’s a bit Old Testament, isn’t it? Do you really believe that?’

‘Yes, I do. But then, first marriages are doomed these days, anyway. And so are people who get tangled up in them.’

‘You really are a cynic, aren’t you, sir?’

‘A realist, I think. Do you know any first marriages you’d want to be in?’

‘Yes… All right, no.’

‘Too inexperienced, taking too much for granted, held together by the kids. Mind you, that can blow up in your face, too.’ He was now gloomily drawing small patterns with beer slops on the shiny table top.

‘Is that what happened to you?’

‘Me?’ He looked up. ‘No… No kids in my case. No, I was thinking of Mr Gregory Thomas North again, my former quarry. Sorry, it’s difficult to forget about old enemies sometimes.’

‘He has children?’

‘One boy. Six years old. North dotes on him. His only redeeming feature. We assumed that he would try to get Mrs N and junior to follow him out, but it seems the wife doesn’t fancy a life on the pampas. Delighted to see the back of him in fact, because she has other arrangements in hand and a homicidal husband doesn’t figure in them. Only the little boy has just been diagnosed as having leukaemia. Three months to live. The missus is keeping it quiet in case North tries to come back to see him.’

‘Oh God, how awful.’

‘Yes. I almost feel sorry for the animal. However, he may find that he gets to see his little boy after all.’

‘Oh?’

‘Mm. We’ve been having unofficial discussions with our friends over there-exchanging information on things generally, you know, the best buy in data banks, thumb screws, flashing blue lights, the things coppers like to talk about when they’re together. I was over there last month, as a matter of fact. Private visit, of course. It seems they don’t like villains who kill coppers any more than we do, whatever their politicians say. The politicians are, however, very sensitive about foreigners who import drugs.’

‘Is North doing that? He must be crazy.’

‘Of course not. He doesn’t need to with all that money in the Swiss bank accounts. However, it’ll be difficult for him to explain that to them when a large stash of heroin is found in his cellar in a couple of weeks’ time, him not even having learnt the language yet.’

‘Wow. And you’ll be waiting for him at the airport.’ ‘ Moi? ’ Brock raised his eyebrows in mock innocence. ‘I know nothing.

‘Anyway,’ he added with a weary sigh, ‘how wonderful to have no part in the whole dreary mess-scheming wives, unfaithful husbands, desperate plans leading nowhere. How wonderful to be like you, Sergeant Kolla, young, beautiful, single and free.’ He raised his empty glass. ‘And if you’re sticking to tomato juice, you can drive us back to Meredith Winterbottom’s funeral, and I can have another pint before we go.’