The Marx Sisters

19

From the front garden of the Kowalskis’ house the Channel was invisible in the fog which shrouded Sussex south of the Weald. Foghorns sounded from the white blanket, mournful and threatening.

At first Mrs Kowalski seemed the same as before, determined to be as obstructive as possible, but as they talked to her in the narrow hallway of her house Kathy began to notice a weariness, as if the woman were condemned to play a part she had grown tired of. She kept repeating things she had said only a short time before. And when Brock told her that Eleanor Harper had been found murdered on the previous day, the news literally knocked her flat. For a moment she stared blankly at his face, and then abruptly crumpled at the knees. They lifted her through into the downstairs sitting room, and Kathy fetched a glass of water from the kitchen. Brock told Kathy to stay with her while he went upstairs to see her husband.

Adam Kowalski was sitting in the same chair and in the same position as when they last saw him, but looked as if he had aged six years rather than six months. His face had no more colour than the fog beyond the window pane.

‘Your foot recovered, Mr Kowalski?’ Brock said heartily.

‘Thank you, yes.’ His eyes were watery-pink and his voice hoarse.

‘I don’t suppose you’ve been travelling much lately, though. To London, say.’

Kowalski frowned and shook his head slightly. ‘Are you alone, Inspector?’ he whispered. ‘Where is my wife?’ He looked beyond Brock towards the door, confused.

‘She’s downstairs with Sergeant Kolla. She fainted when we told her the news about Eleanor Harper.’

‘News?’ His eyes widened, apprehensive.

‘She was murdered yesterday, Mr Kowalski.’

The old man gasped, his eyelids closed and his head went back, and for a moment Brock thought that he too had passed out. But one attenuated hand, scrawny as a chicken’s claw, crept up over the blanket on his lap and made a long and difficult journey up to his face, where it scrabbled awkwardly at his eyes.

‘Who… was responsible?’ he finally gasped.

‘Perhaps you can tell me, Mr Kowalski.’

The eyes flicked open again, fearful, anxious. ‘Me? No… no.’ His head shook.

‘But you can help me, can’t you? You were less than helpful when we spoke the last time I was here.’

‘In what way?’

‘The man with the bow tie, for example. You seemed to be able to remember almost nothing about him. You didn’t even mention the lady he was with. Nor did you mention the connection between him and Meredith Winterbottom.’

When he heard the name, Kowalski’s eyelids fluttered as if he were in pain. ‘Ah…’ He stared at Brock for a moment through his watery eyes and then sighed softly. ‘It was in the weeks before we moved here

… There were so many things to think about. I had forgotten. Since you came here,’ he added hesitantly, ‘I have recalled their visit a little better.’

‘This was the man’s second visit. When would that have been?’

Kowalski thought. ‘A month or so before we moved, which was the 26th of August.

‘The man wanted to know if I had any more material like the thing I had sold him on his first visit. I couldn’t remember what it was, but when he described it I realized it was something I had bought with some children’s books from Meredith Winterbottom… oh, perhaps a year before. He had a woman with him, Scandinavian-looking, very striking. She was quite impatient, I remember, and they searched through the shop for some time, although I knew they wouldn’t find anything that Meredith had sold me. In any case, I was puzzled because they weren’t interested in children’s books and kept asking about old books on politics and history. Then the lady demanded to know who had sold me the framed letter. I thought that Meredith wouldn’t want to be disturbed by these people, so I said I would speak to her first.’

‘You were the dealer after all.’

Kowalski acknowledged this point with a little tilt of his head. Then he turned to stare out of the window, a long, stick-like forearm propping up his head. His pale skin was cracked with pink fissures, and a number of clear-plastic adhesive dressings on his hand looked as if they were holding the skin together. There was silence for an age. Brock thought the old man must have fallen asleep, but then his voice, distant and tired, began again.

‘After I closed the shop, I decided to call on Meredith. I could tell that she was surprised to hear my voice on the intercom, in view of the unpleasantness which had arisen between our two families, but she let me in.

‘“Well, Adam Kowalski,” she said when I was seated in her lounge, “have you come to apologize for the rudeness of that wife of yours?” This was the way she spoke. She was very… straightforward.

‘I explained that Marie only wanted to protect me. I reminded her how some people still felt about the old days, and I begged her that we should forget all that.

‘She acted as if she was still annoyed with Marie, but she had a good nature really, and I think she accepted what I said. Then she asked why I had come, and I reminded her how she had sold me some books a year or so before, and I wondered if she had any more, historical perhaps, or political.

‘She asked why I was asking, so I explained about the customer who had bought the old letter in the frame, and how he’d come back looking for anything similar, old documents or books. She asked me what sort of price they might fetch, and I said I might be able to get five or ten pounds each for such things.’

He paused, gathering strength to continue.

‘She promised to have a look. Then she said that it would be best if she could discuss directly with the customer exactly what he was looking for. She said I should give her his name, and in exchange she would forget all about Marie’s rudeness.’

Kowalski sighed and spread his long fingers.

‘This was not what I had intended, but I couldn’t refuse her the name and telephone number. I just wanted some peace. Both women were quite… implacable.’

He raised his eyebrows to Brock guiltily. There was another long pause, and again Brock was on the point of giving up when Kowalski’s faint voice resumed his story.

‘Some while later, just before we moved, Meredith came to me again. It was the last time I ever saw her. She had a book. She wanted to find someone who could value it for her. I gave her the name of a friend. Later I spoke to him. He told me what he had told her.’

More silence. Brock waited patiently for him to continue.

‘It was a first edition of a book by Karl Marx: The Fourteenth Brumaire. In itself that was something. But inside there was a dedication from Marx himself, to “Tussy”, his youngest daughter, which made it worth much more than it would have been otherwise. He thought she might get four or five thousand for it. She had told him there were others. A dozen.’

‘It’s as if they’d been cast adrift,’ Kathy said as she drove slowly back through the fog. ‘Apparently he just sits up there all the time staring out of the window, wasting away. She said he was like a plant that’d been pulled up by the roots and left to wither. It was about the only thing I could get her to talk about.’

‘He’s sick,’ Brock grunted. ‘She didn’t look her old self, either.’

‘I think she’s declining in response to him. She’d probably be lost without his life to screw up and protect. She’s still very bitter towards Meredith, though.’

‘Difficult to see why.’

‘It seems the people who held out longest got the best price for their properties. The rumour was that Brunhilde Capek got a hundred thousand more for her place, which was the same size as the Kowalskis’, because she held out for another six months. Marie Kowalski feels they could have done the same if the fuss Meredith started up over Adam’s past hadn’t driven them to sell when they did.’

The incident centre at 20 Jerusalem Lane was humming when they returned, its illuminated shop front the only light shining in the dark street. From the front counter where they took off their coats Kathy could see Sergeant Gurney in the back room, moving among his officers and a couple of civilian staff, checking, chatting, pondering. He had the build of a prop forward, and a face that looked as if it had been squashed in a scrum. His hair was slicked back as if still wet from the changing-room showers. She noticed that he had a nice smile and a twinkle in his eye when he spoke to the women. He had been a Navy pilot before joining the force, flying Harriers from Invincible.

Gurney was evidently pleased with the results of his day, and they settled in the upstairs room with coffee to hear his news. A partial report had come in from the pathologist, confirming that Eleanor Harper could have been smothered by the plastic bag. The two blows to the forehead had come after death, and were of token force, barely fracturing the front of the skull. There were no other signs of violence to the body. The time of death couldn’t be placed more precisely than somewhere between 6 p.m. Tuesday and 4 a.m. Wednesday.

There was a possible lead in the search for the weapon used to inflict the two blows. That morning an old hammer had been handed in by the scaffolding crew to the office on the construction site across the Lane. It was possible that it had been thrown into the site from the Lane and might have been there for some time before it was found. The pathologist was now examining it.

‘This is a summary of the results of door-to-door inquiries so far.’ Gurney handed Brock a couple of sheets. ‘Actually I think we’ve just about exhausted the possibilities there. The blokes on the site were the most useful, I’d say. We’ve interviewed them all now, including the drivers of the concrete mixers and other delivery trucks. You’ll notice that they seem to remember women more than men, and young women more than older women. An interesting gestalt phenomenon, I’d say.’

‘That’s one way of describing it,’ Kathy said dryly.

‘You’ll notice the attractive blonde who appears twice there at the beginning of the week, Monday or Tuesday. Then we’ve got the list of the employees of First City Properties and all the people from other organizations involved in the development project here. Mr Slade spoke to me on the phone about it after I’d left the request with his secretary. He insisted on knowing why we wanted the list, so I told him about Miss Harper. He sounded shocked-hadn’t read it in the papers this morning. Said he’d cooperate in any way. He offered his congratulations on catching North, by the way, sir. So much for that.’

Gurney set the documents to one side and reached for another set of typewritten sheets with the look of an amateur magician moving on to a much more interesting trick. ‘Now, Mr Terence Winter.’ His eyes scanned the sheet with satisfaction. ‘Transcript of interview with his alleged girlfriend, Ms Shirley Piggott. She claims she didn’t spend last Tuesday night with him. In fact claims she’s never slept with him.’

Gurney passed the transcript over to Brock.

‘Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s lying. She mentioned that both her mother and her boyfriend would be highly displeased if word of her having it off with Terry Winter got around.’

‘What’s she like?’

‘Eighteen going on sixteen. Silly little thing, all giggles and big eyes. I wouldn’t be surprised if she changed her story later, if things got a bit hot for Terry. But still, it could be useful to put the wind up him.’

‘Poor Terry.’ Kathy shook her head. ‘It’s not his week.’

‘Does he know this?’ Brock asked.

‘No. When I brought him back here, we left him alone for an hour with that list you gave him. Then I went through it with him, and for most of the times he has no alibi at all. A couple he claims he was with someone, but we haven’t been able to check them yet. The only times I’d say he might be covered for are those of some of the phone calls, but again, we’re still checking.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘I thought you might like to have a go at him, sir, so I sent him back to the Yard with DS Griffiths.’

‘Good. What about his flat?’

‘Yes, well, I’m not sure what to make of that. There was a tube of superglue, and a few tools which would have been about right for the damage. We sent the blunt instrument types-a hammer and a monkey wrench-down to the path lab for checking against the wound.’

‘What else?’

‘Well, no diary with red crosses against the appropriate days, I’m afraid. There were enough condoms to stock a chemist shop.’ Gurney grinned. ‘This bloke believed in buying in bulk-a real optimist. Not many seemed to have been used, though. Nothing else incriminating. Then it occurred to me, when we called in at his Peckham salon to speak to Shirley Piggott, which is just round the corner from his flat-it occurred to me to take a look at his office there.’

‘I don’t think I heard that, Bren.’

‘His receptionist was extremely helpful. I explained that I was trying to find a set of keys that Mr Winter had apparently mislaid. She opened up the drawers of his desk and filing cabinet for me to look inside. In one of the drawers we found this…’

He got up and went over to a cardboard box in the corner of the room. From it he took a transparent plastic bag. Kathy gave a little cry as she saw inside it what looked like a severed head.

‘Gruesome, isn’t it?’ Gurney brought it over to the table. It was a plastic mask of a monster’s face with vivid scarlet blood dribbling from its fangs.

‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ Brock sighed. ‘Terry has been a very naughty boy.’

‘That must have scared the life out of Eleanor,’ Kathy said with disgust. ‘No wonder Peg was petrified.’

‘We’ll have to show it to her before we see him.’

‘She’s been booked into the Bedford in Southampton Row, down the road. There’s a WPC with her still.’

‘And no keys to number 22?’

Gurney shook his head. ‘I think we should get a search warrant for all his salons.’

‘All right. Well done, Bren, we’re getting somewhere. We’ll get over to Peg and then to the Yard and speak to the monster Romeo again. I’ll fill you in on our day as we go. Kathy, I’d like you to check something else if you would.’ He pointed to the diagram on the white board where the two circles overlapped. ‘Bob Jones. Let’s just make sure he hasn’t got any more to tell us.’