Dead of Winter

6

Lofty cook shook his head ruefully.

‘This is a real stroke of luck, I can tell you.’

His remark was addressed to Billy, but he spared a glance for Madden, who was beside him.

‘It came out of the blue, too. The first I knew of it was a call from Poole. She rang the station to say she was bringing Florrie in. That’s when I phoned the Yard, looking for you.’

‘Poole?’ Billy asked.

‘That WPC I told you about.’

‘The one who responded to the warden’s whistle? The first officer at the scene?’ Billy nodded. ‘I remember now.’

They were standing in the corridor outside the interview room at the Bow Street police station. Alerted by the desk sergeant, Cook had come out to meet them, shutting the door behind him. If he’d been surprised to see Madden there he gave no sign of it. ‘I heard you were coming up for the funeral, sir,’ he’d said, as they shook hands. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you.’

He’d told them then who the witness was he’d been questioning.

‘Florence Desmoulins is the name on her papers, but we know her as French Florrie and we’ve had her on our books since ’thirty-eight. She’s got a pitch in Soho Square, but the night of Rosa’s murder she was in Tottenham Court Road tube station taking shelter after the sirens went off and that’s where she saw her. Saw Rosa.’

He explained how the streetwalker had come to their notice.

‘When we started showing Rosa’s photograph around, Poole made a point of checking with the tarts. It was her idea. She reckons they’re more observant than most.’

‘Yes, but why has it taken so long to find this Florrie?’ Billy asked. He and Lofty had lit cigarettes and were dropping their ash on the bare wooden floor. ‘The murder was a week ago.’

‘She was off sick for a few days. With a head cold, she says. Poole spotted her this morning shopping in Oxford Street and showed her Rosa’s photo. Florrie said it was the same woman she saw in the tube station.’

‘And you’re happy with that?’

‘Oh, I think so, sir.’ Cook nodded. ‘Florrie saw her close up.’

‘What about this man she says was following Rosa?’

‘We were just getting into that when I heard you were here.’ The Bow Street inspector eyed them both. ‘But even from what little she’s told me I’d say he was our bloke. What I suggest is I fill you in first on what happened earlier, how she spotted Rosa, then we’ll go in and get her to tell us the rest.’

He trod on his cigarette.

‘When the sirens sounded the first time, Florrie ran over to the tube station, but they went off again a few minutes later and no one seemed sure at first what it meant, whether it was the all-clear, or what. Actually, it was a false alarm, but people were milling about for a while. Florrie herself was at the bottom of the stairs, trying to decide whether it was safe to go out again, when this young woman went by her. She was carrying something in each hand, just like Rosa was, and as she worked her way through the crowd they came face to face. That’s why Florrie’s so sure it was her. Anyway, she went up the steps, this girl who must have been Rosa, and a few seconds later Florrie followed.

‘When she got to the top, Florrie paused, still nervous, not sure whether it was safe to go back to her pitch. The blackout was on, of course, but she could still see the girl who’d gone past her crossing the Tottenham Court Road, heading east, which was the direction Rosa would have taken. Just then there was a disturbance behind her, a lot of pushing and shoving on the stairs, and a man came up, forcing his way through the crowd, obviously in a hurry, not caring who he elbowed. When he got to the top, he looked around, saw Florrie standing there and asked her straight out if she’d seen a girl with a bag in each hand go by.’

Cook paused, rubbing his nose. He looked reflective.

‘Now it seems they had a conversation of sorts, Florrie and this fellow, and although I haven’t got the sense of it yet it’s pretty clear what happened, reading between the lines. She didn’t want him chasing off after some other girl, she wanted to hook him herself: she was thinking it would save her the time and trouble of going back to Soho Square to look for a customer. But if that is what she had in mind, it didn’t work out that way. What happened was he turned nasty.’

‘How?’ Billy killed his own cigarette. ‘What did he do?’

‘That’s what I don’t know yet.’ Cook had his hand on the doorknob. He looked at them both. ‘But what say we go inside and find out.’

The door behind them opened and a uniformed constable came in bearing a tray laden with cups of tea. He carried it carefully to the table, set it down, and with a nod to Cook left the room. Billy glanced at his watch. He’d promised Helen to have Madden at Waterloo station by half-past three when they had dropped her off earlier. The possibility of grabbing a bite of lunch had vanished, but they still had some time in hand. Not that there was much point in lingering. They had just about squeezed French Florrie dry.

Or she them.

He grinned as he watched the woman seated across the table simultaneously extinguish the cigarette she’d been smoking and refuse the cup of tea Cook was holding out to her with a disdainful gesture. Small in stature, and with sharp, catlike features, she was dressed in a tight blue skirt and a blouse cut to display the tops of her small breasts. Red hair shaped like a cap framed her carefully made-up face, to which she was attending now, applying lipstick and following this with a dab of powder to her nose from a compact she’d removed from her handbag a moment before. Then, having studied the result for several seconds, she snapped the compact shut.

‘Eh bien, c’est fini?’

Billy’s schoolboy French was just about up to understanding her words, though not a number of others she’d used in the course of the description she had just given of her brush with the man who in all likelihood had killed Rosa Nowak, an account laced with epithets and gestures which, though crude, had lent a compelling edge to her narrative. Listening to her, Billy had realized why Lofty was setting such store by her testimony, why he considered finding her such a stroke of luck. An experienced detective himself, he knew it wasn’t often that you came across a witness as observant as Florence Desmoulins; one whose memory seemed so attuned to the finest detail; whose quick green eyes missed nothing. Talents she had no doubt honed in response to the demands of her profession, but no less valuable on that account.

A case in point was the description she’d given them earlier of the man she’d encountered at the top of the stairs outside the tube station. This was the first question Cook had put to her on returning to the interview room, and Florrie had responded without a second’s hesitation.

‘He was not young,’ she had told Lofty. ‘More than forty years, I think. Tall, but not as tall as you. Nor this gentleman.’ Her glance had shifted to Madden. ‘Mais peut-etre comme toi.’

The remark, which Billy didn’t understand, had been addressed to Cook’s colleague, Joe Grace, one of the detectives sent to Little Russell Street, who was standing with his back to the wall by the door, having given up his chair to Madden. Without warning Florrie had risen and walked over to where he was standing, checked her height against his and then returned to her seat, nodding.

‘Comme ca.’ She had gestured with a jerk of her red head. ‘The same.’

Cook had noted it down as five feet ten inches and then quickly determined that the man’s face and figure had been lean and his hair black and cut short.

‘What about his eyes?’ he had asked then, and Florrie had shrugged.

‘At night in the blackout all eyes are dark.’ She spoke with an accent, one she might even have exaggerated a bit, or so Billy thought, rolling her rs and saying ‘ze’ when she meant ‘the’. ‘Perhaps you already know zat, Inspecteur.’ Her smile had been half taunting, half provocative, and Lofty had chosen to ignore it, staying bent over his notepad.

‘And what was he wearing?’

‘Wearing …?’ Florrie had considered the question for some time, gazing up at the ceiling as if the answer lay there. ‘A dark coat and a hat is all I remember. He was carrying … how do you call it? A case?’

‘A suitcase?’

‘Non … plus petite. It was smaller.’ She demonstrated with her hands.

‘A briefcase, then?’ Cook asked, and she nodded.

‘Exactement.’

‘Could he have been a businessman?’

She shrugged.

It was then that Cook had asked his witness to describe her brush with the man, and Florrie had launched into a graphic description of their brief encounter.

‘I have come up the stairs, oui, I am standing there, and this man, ce connard, he asks me if I have seen a woman carrying two bags.’ She had shrugged. ‘I know who he means, it is the same girl who went past me, but I think maybe he would like to stop and talk, so I make a joke, I say, “What’s your hurry?” ’Her voice took on a droll note. ‘I ask him if he want to spend some time with me. I am being friendly. Tu comprends?’

Out of the corner of his eye Billy saw a cynical smile flit across Joe Grace’s thin, pockmarked countenance.

‘But he only asks again about this girl, where she has gone, and when he speak a second time I change my mind. Even though he is smiling I know this is one I don’t want. So I say, “What’s it to you?” Et sans rien dire il me prend par la gorge, le salaud.’

‘What’s that? What did you say?’ Cook struck the table with his fist in frustration. ‘Speak English, damn it.’

‘He grab me by the throat.’ Florrie spat the words back.‘Comme ca, tu vois.’ She clutched her own throat. ‘And then he speak, but so softly only I can hear. He say, “Answer the question or I break your bloody neck.” ’

Flushed in the face, eyes bright, she stared at Cook.

‘And I tell you, Inspector.’ Her own voice had dropped to a hoarse whisper. ‘This one … he means it.’

In the silence that followed, Cook caught Billy’s eye.

‘And so?’

‘And so I tell him. I say she go that way …’ Florrie waved her hand. ‘And he leaves, walking fast, across the road, and when he is more than halfway I call after him. I shout, “Tu n’es qu’un connard … une merde”, which is a big piece of shit, if you want to know.’ Her voice had risen. ‘I tell him I won’t forget his face — “Je n’oublieraipas ta sale gueule,” I scream, so I know he will hear, and I am ready to run because he stops and turns and he looks at me and I think he is coming back. But instead he goes on and I don’t see him again.’

She sat back, breathing fast, her breasts rising and falling beneath her blouse. Like her cheeks they were flushed. After a moment’s pause, she spoke again, but in a lower tone.

‘You are thinking he is the one who killed this girl? Maybe you are right. I wish now that I had not told him which way she go.’

She glanced down at her hands. Then, as though to rid herself of some memory, she shook her head, reaching for her handbag at the same time. Unsnapping the clasp, she plucked out her compact and while Cook was checking through his notes she repaired the make-up on her face.

‘Eh bien. C’est fini?’

Cook glanced at Billy, who shook his head — he had nothing more to ask her — then at Madden, who was sitting a little back from the table, near the corner, with his arms folded and a pensive look on his face.

‘Sir …?’

Lofty’s tone was respectful and it brought a grin to Billy’s lips. He had watched the effect of his old chief’s presence on both detectives with more than a little amusement. Even Joe Grace, as tough a nut as he’d encountered during his time in the Met, a man he’d once seen tackle a brace of thugs, enforcers for a smash-and-grab gang, and leave them both bloody and pleading for quarter, had moderated his usual abrasive manner and stood silent during the interview, as though out of deference to their visitor. And as for French Florrie, she had apparently decided from the outset that this was a male figure to whom she could relate, perhaps even flirt with, and had favoured him more than once with an inviting glance.

‘Yes, thank you, Inspector. There is one thing …’ Madden shifted in his chair so that he was facing the young woman. ‘You’ve been very patient, mademoiselle. I know how tedious this must be for you. But I was interested by something you’ve just said and I wondered if you could explain it.’

‘Something I said, monsieur?’

Florrie bestowed a smile on her new interrogator: not the faint, contemptuous curl of the lips she’d reserved thus far for Lofty and his two colleagues, men she was more usually inclined to view as her persecutors, but a generous parting of her wide mouth, offering a glimpse of white, pointed teeth.

‘Yes, to this man when he was leaving.’ Oblivious to the reaction he’d aroused, Madden pressed on. ‘You called him a name.’

‘C’est vrai. Une merde’ Unabashed, she repeated the words. ‘I already explain what it mean …’

‘Yes, yes, but you said it in French, am I right?’ Madden leaned forward.

‘Of course.’ She spread her hands.

‘Why?’

‘Why?’ She stared at him.

‘Why not speak in English, so he would understand?’

For a full five seconds her face remained a blank. Then comprehension dawned in her eyes.

‘Mais oui.’ The smile returned. Vous avez raison. But I speak in French because I know he will understand.’

‘What was that?’ Lofty Cook’s glance shot up from his notebook.

‘I forget to tell you …’ She turned to him. ‘When he talk to me first, this man, and he ask about the girl who is carrying the bags, I pretend not to understand. So he tell me she is wearing this thing on her head — ’ Florrie cupped her hands about her hair — ‘cette chose … je ne connais pas le nom … how do you call it?’

‘A hood,’ Madden said.

‘Exactement. An ’ood. This is a word I have not heard before and when he see that I don’t understand he tell me what it is — “un capuchon” — and then he speak to me in French. He ask me again which way she go. Voila!’ She demonstrated with a flourish of her hand. ‘This is how I know.’

Cook put down his pen.

‘So what are you saying exactly?’ he asked her. ‘Was he French? Is that what you’re telling us?’

‘Ah, non…’ Florrie waved her hand dismissively. ‘Pas du tout. He is English. I know from his accent.’

The Bow Street inspector made a final note. He glanced at Madden to see if there was anything further he wished to say.

‘Just one last question.’ Madden smiled at the young woman. ‘You said earlier — when you were telling us how you met this man — that you changed your mind about him?’

‘Monsieur …?’ She seemed puzzled by his query.

‘At first you tried to talk to him. But then you changed your mind; and quite suddenly, too. “This is one I know I don’t want.” That’s what you said. And I wondered why.’

She nodded her head thoughtfully. ‘It is true …’

Up to then he’d been polite. Even friendly. You said he was smiling. Isn’t that so?’

Again she nodded.

‘Why then?’

Florrie sat silent. She seemed uncertain how to reply.

‘Ecoute … it is hard explain.’ She blew out her cheeks in frustration. ‘Mais il’ y avait quelque chose … there was something about this man that was not right.’

‘Not right?’

‘All I can tell you is what I know.’

‘Of course, mademoiselle.’

Madden waited while Florrie sat tapping one red fingernail on the table top, searching for the right words.

Maybe it is his eyes, or maybe it is his smile — ’she glanced at Madden — ‘but when I look at him I know.’

‘Know what?’

‘That this is one to stay away from.’