The Marx Sisters

21

During the night, while Brock and Gurney continued their questioning of Terry Winter, unseasonable freezing winds from the north and east displaced the damp, mild westerlies of the previous days, and a bitter change set in. Waking early on the morning of Friday 3 April, the third day of the investigation into Eleanor Harper’s death, Kathy shuddered to see that the view from her window of the distant street lights was obliterated by swirling snow. She breakfasted hurriedly on tea and toast, hauled on her long coat, scarf, gloves and woollen hat, and made for the lift.

There was just one policewoman in the office at Jerusalem Lane, minding the phones. She said that Winter had been charged, but she didn’t know what with. Copies of statements were on their way over from the Yard, as well as a report from the Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Laboratory at Lambeth Road over the river, on the hammer found in the building site, but neither had yet arrived.

Impatient and edgy, Kathy pulled her outer layers back on and stepped out into the cold dawn of Jerusalem Lane once more. Flurries of snow were gusting through the high chain-link fence which topped the plywood panels of the construction site. Here and there it collected in small drifts. She walked rapidly back up to the north end, head down, and ran across Welbeck Street to the news vendor on the corner. The man had moved his plastic tarpaulin round to the east side of his stall, and Kathy huddled in its shelter. As she searched in her bag for money to pay for the early-morning editions, a red Mercedes sports car pulled over to the kerb on the other side of the street. The interior lit up for a moment as the passenger opened his door, and Kathy saw the driver, a woman, lean over and give him a kiss. He was a big man, who took a moment to haul himself out of the low car, as if his shoulder were giving him trouble. Just before he pulled the collar of his coat up and turned to hurry down Jerusalem Lane, Kathy recognized Brock’s bearded face.

The laboratory report arrived shortly after Kathy returned to the incident centre. It confirmed that the hammer was the one used to strike Eleanor’s forehead in the moments immediately after her death. It was a ballhammer, with a rounded head, as used by plumbers. Its shape and size were consistent with the indentations in Eleanor’s skull, and scratches on its surface matched impressions found on the plastic bag.

Kathy and another officer returned to Winter’s house in Chislehurst to speak to his wife, Caroline. She seemed to find their questions faintly amusing, as if they had no bearing on her own life. She was unable to recall ever having seen the hammer before. Her husband, she said, was not a great handyman.

‘Scissors and a comb are about the only tools he’s any good with,’ she informed the young detective constable with a look that made him blush. ‘The last time hammers were mentioned in this house was when one of the builders putting in the new kitchen complained he’d lost one. I can’t remember which, though. One of the older men. I didn’t pay much attention.’

It was mid-morning by the time Kathy returned to Jerusalem Lane. Bren Gurney was sitting over a mug of tea in the back room, looking exhausted. He told her that Winter’s attempts to account for his movements had been a farce. It had been impossible to confirm his whereabouts for any of the incidents that had occurred at the sisters’ house, and in the case of the business with the mask, a neighbour had actually seen him leave his Peckham flat an hour before it occurred, although he claimed he had remained at home all night. Peg couldn’t be certain that the mask was the one used to frighten Eleanor, since only her sister had seen it, but confirmed that it was just as she had described it.

Despite all this, Winter had refused to admit to anything. Gurney seethed with frustration, and not only with Winter. He was convinced the man was guilty. He had the clearest motive, weak or non-existent alibis, and he was telling lies, at first with a certain amount of assurance, like someone unused to having his lies disbelieved, and then increasingly, as the night wore on, out of sheer desperation. Yet Brock had seemed oddly reluctant to act, and it was only towards 4 in the morning that he had finally agreed that Winter should be charged with a number of offences relating to the incidents at 22 Jerusalem Lane between November and March. These included threatening behaviour and causing malicious damage, but not yet murder.

Gurney sighed and ran a hand across his chin. ‘I’d better get myself a shave.’

‘Haven’t you had any sleep?’ Kathy asked him.

He shook his head. ‘I hung around to process the charges, then to wait for Winter’s solicitor. Brock got an hour or two shut-eye, I guess.’

‘Did he go home?’

‘Doubt it. He lives down by Dulwich. Probably put his head down at the Yard.’

‘Does he have a sister?’

‘Yes. Out in Buckinghamshire somewhere, I think. Why?’ He looked curiously at Kathy.

‘Oh, when I was buying the papers this morning I saw him arrive. A woman brought him, in a red Merc sports.’

A little smile creased Gurney’s tired eyes. ‘Don’t suppose you got the number?’

Kathy reached across and wrote on the pad in front of him. Gurney tore off the sheet and left the office. Half an hour later he strolled back in again, washed, shaved and considerably more cheerful. Without a word he placed a note in front of Kathy. On it was written the name Mrs Suzanne Chambers, a telephone number and an address in Belgravia, barely two hundred yards from Scotland Yard.

At that moment Brock appeared in the doorway behind them. ‘You two want to bring me up to date?’ he said, and then, seeing the note in Kathy’s hand and the smile on her face, ‘Good news?’

She shook her head quickly. ‘Nothing, really.’ She stuffed the note into the pocket of her trousers and followed the two men up the stairs.

It was only when they were seated that Kathy saw that Brock was as tired as Gurney. He had dark circles under his eyes, and he suppressed a yawn as Gurney spoke.

‘Winter will appear this afternoon,’ he said. ‘We’re opposing bail, of course, but I don’t think the court will wear it. Especially not with the solicitor he’s got himself.’

‘Who is it?’

‘Two of them. A little old guy called Hepple.’

‘The sisters’ solicitor?’ Brock said, sitting up sharply. ‘That’s odd.’

‘Yeah. He was really enjoying himself. I must say I could have done without his jolly repartee this morning. But his mate’s the bad news. Apparently Hepple isn’t representing Winter, he just came along to introduce him to this brief that he’d found for him. Your old friend Martin Connell, Brock.’

Kathy froze. She didn’t hear the next part of their conversation, but as their voices began to register again she was suddenly filled with an enormous sense of gratitude to Brock-first because he studiously avoided looking at her, and then because it was clear that Gurney knew nothing about her connection with Connell. Her hand closed around the message in her pocket, and she screwed it into a tight little ball.

‘But how the hell did either Hepple or Connell come in on this?’ Brock thumped his fist on the arm of his chair.

‘And how can Winter afford him?’ Gurney added, shaking his head. ‘The only good thing is that we know for sure that anyone Connell represents has got to be seriously guilty. Otherwise it’s all bad. Christ’-he rubbed his forehead wearily-‘he even knew about me getting into Winter’s office at Peckham without a search warrant. He let it drop that he was going to pin me on unlawful entry.’

Brock swore, pulled himself to his feet and strode over to the window. He stood there for a minute, staring at the snowflakes swirling outside, then walked slowly back to his seat.

‘I spoke to the lab just now,’ he said. ‘It looks as if the plastic bag used on Eleanor was the same type as in one of those packets you brought back from Winter’s house yesterday, Kathy. But it’s a common type, in every supermarket, and Winter’s prints weren’t on the packet we picked up, which isn’t to say that he didn’t take another one. It’s not the same type as was used on Meredith, which came from a packet in her own kitchen. So we’ll have to pursue the hammer as another way of tying Winter in.’

Kathy reported her conversation that morning with Caroline Winter, and that they were in the process of tracing the kitchen contractor whose plumber might have lost a hammer at the Winters’ home.

Brock nodded. ‘Now, about the first murder. We’d better have another word with the woman who provided Winter’s alibi then. What was her name?’

‘Geraldine McArthur.’

‘Yes. In view of their falling out, she might be less keen to protect him now.’

He paused, rubbing his eyes. ‘Bren, go home and get some rest, will you? I cannot stand people falling asleep when I’m talking to them.’

Gurney shook himself and protested that he was only thinking with his eyes closed. Then, seeing Brock’s expression, he got to his feet.

‘Yeah, I wouldn’t mind a couple of hours, chief.’

‘See you later.’

When he had gone, Brock said quietly, ‘Bren is convinced we can pin everything on Winter. I’m not so sure. So, what are the alternatives?’

‘We’ve just got the results of the check Bren organized on that list of names from the developer’s office and the others involved in the building project. Only one with a criminal record. Guess who?’

‘Bob Jones?’ Brock asked wearily.

‘No, of course not.’ She smiled. ‘Danny Finn. They call him their Project Manager.’

Brock nodded. ‘Well, we’d better have a word with him. See if you can find out where he is.’

Kathy phoned First City Properties, who told her he was on site. She rang the site office, but when she put the phone down she looked both puzzled and worried. ‘They say he left. He had an appointment-at the Bedford Hotel.’

‘But that’s where we put Peg Blythe, for God’s sake!’

‘Yes.’

‘Who knew where she was?’

‘Nobody. Nobody knew.’

‘What the hell is going on around here!’ Brock was on his feet, reaching for his coat.

Kathy quickly punched the hotel telephone number, spoke a few words and returned the receiver. ‘He arrived there ten minutes ago. Peg has just phoned down and ordered coffee and chocolate biscuits, for two.’

Brock shook his head in disbelief. ‘Let’s go and join them, then. What did Finn have on his record, Kathy? Is he a thief?’

‘One charge of theft as a juvenile. Since then GBH, resisting arrest, and, most recently, about ten years ago, assault. A charge of attempted murder was dropped.’

She ran after Brock as he thundered down the wooden stairs.

Peg answered Kathy’s knock, looking fresh and with her morale restored. She was wearing a burgundy knitted suit with flowery blouse and pearls, her white hair carefully coiffed, and she welcomed them with a delighted smile, as if they were old friends she hadn’t seen in years.

‘How lovely of you both to come and see me again. And in such terrible weather! You’re just in time for morning coffee to warm you up.’

‘We just wanted to check how you were, Mrs Blythe. Are you alone?’ Kathy was looking over the top of her head into the room.

‘Peg, dear, please.’ She put a neatly manicured, arthritic hand on Kathy’s arm and spoke in a confiding whisper. Kathy bent her head to hear, and smelled her lavender cologne. ‘I have another visitor, a dear friend of mine that I invited to visit me.’ She looked at Kathy with a twinkle in her eye and patted her arm. ‘Come in and meet him.’

Seated in an armchair was a wiry little man of about fifty, with a badly broken nose. In one hand he held a teacup raised to his lips, and in the other the saucer upon which was perched a chocolate biscuit. He put these encumbrances carefully down on the coffee table in front of him and rose to his feet.

‘Danny, I’d like you to meet the charming police officers I was telling you about. Kathy and…’-she hesitated-‘Chief Inspector Brock. This is Mr Danny Finn.’

Finn put out his hand. ‘How d’ye do. Peg’s been telling me about ye. Come away and sit down.’ He turned to Peg. ‘Peg, hen, I’ll be on my way. Ye’ll have things to discuss with the officers, an’ I need tae be gettin’ back anyhow.’

‘Actually it was you we really wanted to see, Mr Finn,’ Kathy said coolly.

Finn looked at her carefully. ‘Oh, aye?’

‘But you will take a cup of coffee, won’t you?’ Peg lifted the phone. ‘Now I remember you take black, Inspector,’ she said flirtatiously, ‘but what about you, Kathy, dear?’

‘No, really, Mrs Blythe, we won’t stop for coffee,’ Brock said.

‘Of course, you’re so busy. Well, do please sit down for a moment. Danny here has been such a help. I find it so useful to talk things over with him. He’s been giving me advice on security for when I return to my flat. He feels I need better window locks. What do you think, Inspector?’

Brock grunted, ‘Very likely. We’ll get a Crime Prevention Officer to call again. But you mustn’t be thinking of that until we find who was responsible for the death of your sisters. Surely you must understand that.’

‘I do so appreciate your concern, Inspector. Have you no clues at all?’

‘We believe that Mr Winter was responsible for the acts of vandalism and the attempts to frighten you and your sister in the past five months. We charged him this morning.’

Peg put her hand to her mouth, her eyes wide. ‘Oh no. Poor Terry. I know you suspected him… Poor Caroline too, and the girls…’ She shook her head.

‘I’m not surprised,’ Finn said. ‘I said as much to ye weeks ago, did I not, hen?’

Peg nodded. ‘Yes, you did, Danny, and I didn’t believe you. I just couldn’t imagine that Terry would really do such a thing. To his aunties! He was such a dear little boy. Meredith did spoil him, I know. We all did… But surely, Inspector, you don’t imagine that he could have’-her voice dropped to a whisper as she struggled to articulate the awful thought-‘murdered his own mother… and his aunt!’

‘We don’t know, Mrs Blythe. He hasn’t been charged with that. And that’s why, until we are satisfied that we’ve got the person responsible, you shouldn’t think of going home. Nor of telling anyone where you’re staying. That’s the whole point after all, isn’t it?’

She didn’t seem to understand at first, and then she looked at Danny Finn and blushed.

‘Oh dear! You mean… Oh, but Inspector,’ she recovered herself with a tinkling laugh, ‘you can’t mean Mr Finn. He is a good friend. With him I feel as safe as houses.’

Danny Finn returned with Kathy and Brock to the interview room upstairs at 20 Jerusalem Lane.

‘How long have you known Peg Blythe?’ Brock began. Finn seemed quite relaxed, taking an interest in all the activity going on around him in the incident centre. He was dressed in an anonymous business suit, pale blue shirt and dark tie, with a diary and gold pencil forming a bulge in his shirt pocket.

‘Oh, let me see. The demolition contractor moved on tae site at the beginning of November last, and I came round tae see the two sisters maybe a week or two before that.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, they were the last people on the site who hadn’t agreed tae sell up and go, and I was concerned we might have some trouble from them. You know, complaints about noise and the like. So I went round tae see what they were like, and try tae explain what was goin’ tae happen.’

‘You befriended them.’

‘Aye, I suppose ye could put it like that. Tae tell ye the truth I liked the old dears. They’re real characters. Ye know about their politics? Make Wedgie Benn look like a rabid Tory.’

‘And no doubt you could give them disinterested advice on whether they should sell up or stay here?’ Kathy’s voice was cold with scepticism.

‘Look, lassie, I don’t like sarcasm. If ye have something ye’re trying tae say, you just say it.’

‘Well, Mr Finn, I suppose what I’m trying to say is that it seems to me your main purpose in befriending the two sisters was to persuade them to sell up to your company.’

‘Aye, that’s exactly right. Look, I like things simple, and it was obvious that those old dears livin’ in the middle of a building site wasn’t goin’ tae be simple. It seemed obvious tae me that they should sell up. But equally it seemed obvious that yon wallies at Jonathan Hockings had made a pig’s ear of negotiating with the ladies, an’ I can imagine that greedy wee Terry only made things worse. So I decided that it needed someone tae talk it over sensibly with them.’

‘Someone impartial, like you.’

‘Someone like me who understood what the score was, yes. I made no pretence about where my loyalties lay, but equally I told them how they could get the best deal from First City. They weren’t under any illusions, don’t you worry.’

‘And now, you’re still negotiating?’

‘Mrs Blythe phoned me today, Sergeant. Not the other way around.’

‘From what you said earlier, Mr Finn, you knew Terry Winter,’ Brock said. ‘How come?’

‘He was goin’ spare when it turned out that his aunts wouldn’t leave even after his mother died. He an’ yon Quentin Gilroy’-he pronounced the name as if it were a weak joke-‘got together, an’ Gilroy suggested Winter speak tae me about ways tae persuade the old ladies tae leave.’

‘Why would he suggest your name, Mr Finn?’

‘Because he knows my reputation as a total bastard, I expect, Chief Inspector.’

‘Or perhaps your record of violent crime, Mr Finn.’

Finn laughed. ‘Well, I don’t think that Quentin knows about any imaginary “record of violent crime”, though no doubt if he did it would only go tae enhance my professional reputation.’

‘ “Imaginary”? Theft, assault and attempted murder don’t sound too imaginary, Mr Finn.’

‘Chief Inspector, no young lad with any gumption came out of the Gorbals in my day without a record. When I was fourteen I had a nice wee business supplying plumbing materials tae a builder’s supply yard. At night me an’ my pal would climb over the wall and pinch the pipes, and next day we’d take them back an’ sell them tae them again.’ He chuckled at the memory. ‘I was a budding entrepreneur, that’s all. A Thatcherite ahead of my time. Later on I got in a bad fight in a pub, an’ that was where the GBH an’ resistin’ arrest came from. It was all a long time ago.’

‘What about the assault on the tourist ten years ago?’

‘Och!’ Finn ran a gnarled hand through the unruly tuft of thinning hair that stuck out of his scalp. ‘Ten years ago I was made redundant for about the fifth time. We were up north and I had a young family. I was a trained chippie, but there was no work for carpenters there. I was made redundant that last time on Christmas Eve. Have you ever been sacked on Christmas Eve yourself, lassie? No, well…’ He looked perplexed for a moment as he thought he caught the faintest trace of a smirk on Kathy’s face. ‘Well, anyway, I got a job sweeping the service roads underneath one of the shopping malls in the town. Part of the job was to stick a label on the windscreen of anyone who parked illegally down there, telling them they’d be prosecuted if they did it again. One day this big car parked, and I stuck on the label. Next thing, the driver, some foreign character, starts abusing me. I didn’t like the way he talked tae me, as if, because I was sweeping roads, I was no better than dirt myself. He told me tae get the label off his windscreen, so I said all right, Jimmy, if that’s what ye want, an’ I put my broom through the bloody windscreen.’

He shrugged. ‘I felt better, I can tell ye, but of course, next thing he’s got the centre manager down there insisting they call the police, and swearing I’d tried tae kill him, which of course was all a load of nonsense. The centre manager didn’t know what tae do, and he got on tae Mr Slade, whose company owns the centre. They paid off the tourist, an’ once he’d gone back home the charges against me were dropped. They had tae sack me of course, but the next time Mr Slade was up north he asked tae see me. We got on like a house on fire, an’ the end of it was that he offered me a job down here in London.’

‘What about Terence Winter?’ Brock persisted. ‘What did you discuss with him?’

‘He came into the office one day. He saw Mr Slade, who couldn’t do much except tae sympathize with Winter’s predicament. Then Winter asked for me. He said he’d heard from Gilroy that I could get things done. I thought he was jokin’, an’ I told him about the tricks we used tae play when I was a lad, terrorizing old ladies in the street, like tying the door knockers on opposite sides of the close together with string, then knocking one, an’ when they opened their door they’d cause another knocker tae go, an’ then that one would get another going, an’ so on until the whole close was in an uproar. As I say, I thought he was jokin’. I had no idea he’d actually try tae get them tae leave that way.’

After Finn had left, a WPC passed on a message to Brock from Sergeant Griffiths, who had been sent to bring in Geraldine McArthur, Winter’s former mistress. McArthur had not been seen since leaving work the previous afternoon. The WPC added that a Dr Naismith and her solicitor were waiting to see him.

Brock asked her to show them up to his office, rather than the interview room at the back, because it was warmer and he wanted Judith Naismith to see the grisly photographs of Eleanor Harper’s corpse pinned up on the wall. But if she saw them as she came in, she showed no sign of it. Her face was set with determination as she and her solicitor, an elegantly dressed man in his late thirties, sat facing Brock and Kathy.

‘It is essential for reasons of her work that my client return immediately to the United States, Chief Inspector. Unless you can provide some very convincing reasons for continuing to hold on to it, we must insist that you return her passport to her and allow her to leave the country forthwith. She has made a booking for a flight this afternoon, and she intends to catch it.’

‘I see.’ Brock scratched his beard. ‘I take it then that Dr Naismith now intends to answer my questions?’

‘She does. Indeed she would have done so last night if you and your officers had been more, what shall we say, considerate in your treatment of her.’

‘Well then, tell us about your contacts with Meredith Winterbottom, Miss Naismith.’

She told them, in a clear, measured tone, without any unnecessary words or gestures, of the two meetings she and Bob Jones had arranged with Meredith, confirming his account of both.

‘You had no contact with her independently of Mr Jones?’

She shook her head.

‘And what about Eleanor Harper?’

‘I met her briefly on that first occasion. Otherwise I’ve had no contact with her.’

‘Really?’

She stared back at him steadily. ‘That’s correct.’

‘Tell us about the books you saw in Eleanor’s flat-the older books that interested you particularly.’

‘They were a few first editions, and some books with dedications written apparently by Karl Marx.’

‘How valuable, would you say?’

‘I couldn’t say. I’m not a book dealer. But certainly of interest to a historian like myself.’

‘Interesting enough to make a special trip across the Atlantic.’

‘Oh, come, that’s not such a big deal. It’s very cheap. A pleasant weekend trip, that’s all. And I had other business in London.’

‘What about other documents?’

‘Mrs Winterbottom gave me a couple of handwritten pages. One was a letter, the other a piece of text of some kind. She was unclear as to whether there was any more, and on their own they didn’t amount to much.’

‘Has anyone been in touch with you recently, offering you the books or other material?’

‘No.’

‘And did you make any attempt to contact the two sisters in the last few days, by phone or in person?’

‘No.’

‘When did you first learn that Eleanor Harper had been murdered?’

‘When my solicitor here told me this morning.’

‘And where were you on the night of Tuesday last, the 31st?’

‘In my hotel. The Connaught, in Kensington High Street.’

Brock became silent, staring at the papers in front of him.

‘All right, Chief Inspector? All in order? Can we be on our way?’ The solicitor eased forward in his chair as if to stand up.

‘Yes, you may as well.’ Brock’s voice was flat, his face tired. ‘And perhaps you would advise your client not to bother coming back to waste my time until she’s decided to be honest with me.’

After a second’s pause, Judith and her solicitor both began to protest at Brock’s bowed head. When they had finished, he looked up and fixed Judith in the eye.

‘I find it inconceivable that you would come all the way to London to buy documents from someone and then go home empty-handed without making any subsequent attempt to contact the owner of those books. I don’t believe that you are being honest with us about the significance of the documents. And your hotel tells us that you did not return to your room on the night of the 31st of March. Now, please go away and consider this matter a little more seriously. This is a murder inquiry. You will remain in this country until I consider that we are getting your full cooperation.’

Judith had become even paler than usual. She turned to her solicitor, who said hurriedly, ‘I’d like to have a few private words with my client, Chief Inspector.’

‘Be my guest.’ Brock flapped his hand at the interview room across the landing. Kathy noticed that the weary droop to his shoulders lifted as soon as they left the room, and a little smile came into his face.

After a few minutes they returned, and the solicitor spoke. ‘It appears, Chief Inspector, that Dr Naismith had personal reasons for concealing her whereabouts on Tuesday night. She did indeed not return to her hotel room that night. In fact she spent the evening and the night in the company of a close friend. The friend is married as it happens, and Dr Naismith feels that it would cause considerable unnecessary distress if the family became involved in this matter.’

‘Oh dear,’ Brock sighed, ‘we seem to have an epidemic.’

‘Pardon me?’

‘Could you give us his name and address, please?’

The solicitor looked questioningly at Judith, who shook her head abruptly.

‘I understand that it is an extremely sensitive situation, Chief Inspector. Surely you can appreciate-’

‘Sorry.’ Brock got to his feet and moved to get his coat from behind the door. ‘Not good enough. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got work to do.’