Dead of Winter

26

‘Well, at last we seem to be getting somewhere, sir.’

Sinclair bustled into Bennett’s office with his file under his arm, limping, it was true, but more from habit than anything else. As though in keeping with the festive spirit, the pain in his toe had eased somewhat and he was enjoying the momentary respite from discomfort.

‘We’ve had a sighting of Ash. Tentative, but encouraging. I’ve just had word of it from Brixton. A local landlady called in at the station this morning and said she was reasonably sure he’d been staying at her boarding house until a few days ago. She said she recognized his face from the passport photograph published in the papers.’

‘Reasonably sure?’ Bennett paused in the middle of slipping some papers into a drawer to look up. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Well, bear in mind the snapshot’s an old one, taken when he was a young man, so it would have been hard for her to be certain. But in spite of that she seemed to think the resemblance was strong. The detective she spoke to at Brixton pressed her hard, but she stuck to her guns: she said she was ninety per cent sure it was the same man. And there are other factors that seemed to support her story.’

‘Such as …?’ The assistant commissioner closed the drawer. He was on the point of leaving for his Christmas break, but had asked Sinclair at their meeting earlier that morning to keep him informed up to the last minute.

‘His behaviour, in a word.’ The chief inspector sat down. ‘He was there for a week, but his landlady saw very little of him. He didn’t mix with her other lodgers — she served them breakfast and supper — but had his meals in his room. And he always seemed to manage to slip in and out without encountering anyone. Quiet as a cat, she said.’ Sinclair’s eyes had narrowed. ‘The cat who walked by himself, perhaps. My nose tells me it was Ash and I’m acting on that assumption. Especially as we have a name.’

‘A name-?’

‘A new name. He registered with her as Henry Pratt, which suggests he has a new identity card. He may well have had it all along. A man like him would want to be prepared. He stayed with her only for a week, and that indicates he’s been switching addresses since leaving Wandsworth, which is what I’d expect. And thanks to Poole we’ve also got a ready-made explanation for why he’s remained in London. It seems he had unfinished business with this private investigator. I’m having the new name circulated to all stations in the Metropolitan area at once, and if necessary I’ll extend that nationwide.’

Lily Poole’s dramatic irruption into the assistant commissioner’s office two hours earlier had been the prelude to a flurry of action. No sooner had Sinclair dispatched Billy Styles to Paddington to speak to the detectives dealing with the Quill murder than word of Ash’s possible whereabouts had reached him via a telephone call from the station commander at Brixton.

‘And there’s something you can do since you’re here,’ he had told Lily, who had accompanied him back to his office, still carrying her bowl of what he now learned was beef dripping. ‘You say Quill spent time inside recently. Get on to records and find out whether he was banged up in Wormwood Scrubs and if so whether his sentence coincided with Alfie Meeks’s.’

The answer to both questions, it turned out, was in the affirmative. For a period of six months their sentences had been concurrent.

‘So Meeks could well have given Ash his name,’ he told Bennett now.

‘Then you believe Quill’s murder is definitely linked to the case?’ The assistant commissioner took his glasses off and slipped them into a case. He looked at his watch. Sinclair knew his superior wanted to escape — he had a long drive to the country ahead of him — but saw he was reluctant to leave with a case they were both so deeply involved in coming to a head.

‘It’s more than a possibility, but we need confirmation. I’m hoping Styles will get that at Paddington. And it’s vital we find out who this Polish girl is, the one Quill was paid to search for.’

‘Could it have been Rosa Nowak?’ Bennett asked. ‘Perhaps Ash was looking for her after all.’

The chief inspector pondered his reply.

‘I’ve been asking myself the same question,’ he admitted.

‘But on the whole I think not. From what Poole said it sounded as though Quill had been employed more recently. Since Rosa was murdered, at least, which suggests there’s a second girl involved. We need to speak to this Molly Minter again, find out exactly what it was Quill said to her. We don’t know for certain it was Ash who killed him, but reading the facts as I do, the murder bears his mark. He employs a man to do a job and then eliminates him. It’s a pattern. Wherever he goes and whatever he does, he slams the door behind him. But we’re catching up with him. The net’s closing.’

Closing, yes, but oh so slowly, the chief inspector thought as he waited in his office for further word from either Paddington or Brixton. Used to the sound of footsteps passing by in the passage outside and to the presence of Lily Poole in the room next to his, he found the silence oppressive. With Christmas a day away only a skeleton staff was on duty at the Yard, and while Sinclair would not have been averse to keeping the young policewoman with him — he’d come to admire her single-minded determination and already regretted the day when he would have to return her to Bow Street — he had turned a deaf ear to her pleas to remain by his side.

‘Think of your poor aunt, Constable. She sent you out with that bowl of dripping hours ago. It’s time you delivered it to its proper destination.’

But as she was leaving, he had checked her.

‘You distinguished yourself today. You used your wits and it won’t be forgotten. You have my word. Now go home and enjoy your Christmas.’

He might have said more. Earlier, before they had parted, Bennett had expressed his own appreciation of the young woman’s initiative.

‘It took some nerve, pushing her way into my office. But she did the right thing. I like her dash. When and if you come to write that report for the commissioner, I’ll add a word of my own. She’s just the kind of officer the force needs and I intend to make sure he knows that.’

Shortly after one o’clock the sound of heels rapping on the bare wooden floor of the corridor outside heralded the return of Billy Styles from Paddington. He had taken Grace with him, having earlier reported to Sinclair that Lofty Cook was down with bronchitis and would be off for a few days.

‘We still don’t know for sure whether it was Ash who topped Horace Quill,’ he announced even before they had shed their coats and hats. But we’ve got a name for the client who called on him two nights ago.’

‘It wasn’t by any chance a Mr Pratt?’ Sinclair asked in all innocence, and had the satisfaction of seeing Billy’s jaw drop in amazement.

‘Blimey, sir! How’d you know that?’

When he heard Sinclair’s explanation, he shook his head in wonder.

‘So he’s changed his name again. I don’t know how he does it. You’d think he’d get confused. Wake up some mornings wondering who he is.’

While Grace, on Sinclair’s instruction, went upstairs to the canteen to order tea and sandwiches to be sent down for their lunch, Billy gave the chief inspector a resume of what he’d learned.

‘They found the name in a pocket diary Quill kept in his flat, which was just a room above his office. The name “Pratt” was jotted down on the 22nd with the time of the meeting, which was 8 p.m. What’s interesting was there was no diary found in his office and nothing on his desk to indicate what business he was dealing with. It looks as if whoever killed him took the time to remove anything incriminating. Quill’s notes on the case he was handling, for example. Or maybe his report to the client. The desk had been rifled, too, and someone had been through the filing cabinet. Roy Cooper has had the room and the banisters dusted for prints; we’re going to compare them with what we lifted at Ash’s flat in Wandsworth.’

‘Tell me about the murder,’ Sinclair said. ‘The report in the crime sheet said his head was crushed.’

‘That’s right. With a brass vase, big as an urn, filled with soil and a dead plant. It must have been standing on a table behind the desk near the window. Quill was sitting at his desk when he was hit — the chair was overturned — and it looks like the vase came down straight on top of his head, which means the killer must have been behind him. He couldn’t have done it from in front; the thing was too heavy.’

‘Strange …’ the chief inspector mused. ‘Perhaps he was feeling nostalgic.’

‘Sir-?’ Billy didn’t understand.

‘That was how Ash killed Jonah Meeks thirty years ago, only he used a rock.’

Billy shrugged. ‘I don’t know about that. What I thought was he didn’t want to use the wire again, give us such an obvious lead. The vase was handy, and provided Quill was otherwise occupied, which he probably was, it would have been a simple way of doing it.’

‘Occupied? How?’

‘He was obviously at his desk, as I say, and this bloke — Ash, if it was him — must have got up from his chair and started wandering about. Maybe he went over to the window. Anyway he got himself near enough to the vase so that he could take hold of it. All that time Quill was sitting at his desk, and from the evidence it looks as though he was counting some money.’

He was interrupted by the door opening. Joe Grace came in carrying a tray loaded with a teapot, cups and a plate heaped with sandwiches.

‘Thought I’d better bring it down myself, sir,’ he said to Sinclair as he laid the tray on the chief inspector’s desk. ‘They’re short-staffed upstairs. Didn’t know how long we’d have to wait.’

There was a brief pause while they helped themselves from the tray. Not hungry himself, Sinclair accepted the cup of tea Billy poured for him, but waved away the plate of sandwiches. Sipping the hot liquid, he glanced out of the window and saw that it was snowing again.

‘We’ve been going over the murder itself,’ he told Grace as he turned back to face them. ‘You were just saying it looked as though Quill was handling money when he was killed.’

He looked at Billy, who nodded, brushing the crumbs from his lips.

‘They found a blood-stained fiver under the desk. It must have been on the blotter when Quill was hit with that vase. The blotter itself was soaked with his blood. Now it’s unlikely to have been a note of his own — his wallet was in his pocket with a couple of quid in it — so it must have been given him by his killer. Along with a wad of them, perhaps. That would have got Quill’s attention, all right. Stopped him from looking up to see what his visitor was doing.’

Does it mean ‘So you think he was being paid for services rendered?’ Sinclair nodded. ‘That sounds plausible. Does it mean he’d found this Polish girl, then?’

‘That’s what we don’t know.’ Billy glanced at Grace, who was sitting beside him. ‘What he was doing was stringing this client of his along. We got that from Quill’s tart, Molly Minter.’

‘Stringing him along? You’d better explain that.’ The chief inspector’s brow had furrowed.

‘After Cooper had shown us the murder site we went back to the station with him to talk to Molly. They’d been holding her there.’ Billy grinned. ‘Roy wasn’t best pleased at the way Poole had stuck her nose into this, but I told him to let it go. Either that, or take it up with you. Anyway, they’d pulled her in and put her through the wringer and they came up with more details about the job Quill had been on. He seems to have run off at the mouth about it to Molly, mainly because he was so pleased with himself. The girl he was supposed to be looking for lived in the country not too far from London. That’s what he told Molly, and he said finding her would be a piece of cake. She knew for a fact that he’d made at least a couple of trips out of London.’

‘With what result, though?’

‘That’s what’s unclear.’ Billy frowned. ‘You see, Molly didn’t live with him. She’s got a room of her own where she takes her customers. Every now and then Quill would get in touch with her and she’d go and spend the night with him. But her information’s patchy. She only knows what he told her, but she gathered he was playing this bloke, this client, making out that the job he’d been given was harder than it was. He’d been paid a fat advance, and according to Molly he thought he could probably get more if he handled him right, plus a final payment when the job was done.’

‘Which might have been the case? He could have already found her, but was withholding the information for the time being.’

‘That’s right, sir.’ Billy nodded. ‘We just don’t know. It’s likely the man Quill was seeing two nights ago when he was topped was this same client; it’s the only job he was working on. And from what Quill had told her earlier it’s quite possible all he was going to tell him was he needed another advance; that he was searching high and low but still hadn’t found her.’

‘But in that case, why would Ash have killed him?’

‘Well, I can think of one reason.’ Billy scratched his head. ‘He might have twigged he was being made a fool of and decided to cut his losses, look for the girl some other way and close his account with Quill. The way I see it he was always going to top him, Ash was. Quill already knew too much about his business and of course he could identify him by sight. He may have pretended to go along with his request for more money, and then done him when the opportunity presented itself.’

‘Alternatively, he may have decided to give Ash the information he wanted and claim his final payment; not being aware, of course, just how final it would be.’ The chief inspector rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘But I take your point: we can’t be sure whether he found the girl or not. And the worst of it is we still don’t know who she is or why Ash was after her. I take it Quill gave the Minter woman no details.’

‘Not her name, that’s for certain. Only that she was Polish.’

‘And living in the countryside. Just as Rosa Nowak was. We are absolutely sure it wasn’t her Quill was looking for?’

Having earlier answered Bennett on this very point, the chief inspector now sought reassurance himself.

‘Oh, yes, sir — there’s no doubt.’ Billy was positive. ‘It simply doesn’t fit that way. Quill was still supposed to be searching for this other girl weeks after Rosa was murdered. He’d been in touch with his client by phone: he told Molly that. If it was Rosa he’d been hired to track down, Ash would have killed him right after he’d topped her. He wouldn’t have waited till now.’

Nodding, Sinclair expelled his breath in a long sigh. He glanced at his watch.

‘I’m afraid you’re not going to have much of a Christmas, either of you. It’s quite possible we’ll locate Ash under the name of Pratt today. He has to stay somewhere, and that means either a hotel or a boarding house. They’re being checked now: the word’s gone out to all stations in the metropolitan area. The process will continue tomorrow if necessary, and you’ll have to be on call.’

‘That’s suits me, sir.’ Billy’s smile was wry. ‘Elsie and the kids are still up in Bedford. I wasn’t expecting to see them anyway till this was over.’

‘How about you, Sergeant?’ Sinclair turned to Grace, who had been silent all this time.

‘It’s no hardship to me, sir.’ Joe Grace’s pockmarked face broke into a wolfish grin. ‘I want to be there when we catch this bloke. I want to see his face when we put the cuffs on him.’

‘The cuffs, yes …’ The chief inspector nodded. Then his gaze hardened. ‘But just as a precaution, I want you both armed from now on. Collect your weapons from the armoury. I’ll authorize it. We may get word of Ash’s whereabouts at any time and I want you ready to move at once.’

He fell silent and the detectives waited. They saw he had something more to say.

‘When you come to approach him, you’re to do so with your revolvers drawn. Don’t take any chances. If you’re in any doubt as to how dangerous he is, cast your minds back to Wapping and what happened to Benny Costa.’

He paused to give his words time to sink in.

‘And if he makes any move to draw a gun, you’re authorized to shoot him. I take full responsibility. Is that clear?’

Billy nodded. His lips had tightened.

‘Sergeant?’ Sinclair looked at Grace.

‘Oh, don’t worry about me, sir.’ Grace’s grin widened. ‘It won’t bother me none. Not with a cold-blooded bastard like that. Mind you, shooting’s too good for him. I want to see him swing. Or better still, hand him over to the Frenchies. They still use the guillotine, don’t they? Now that would go down with me a treat.’