The Bee's kiss

Chapter Sixteen

For a moment, Joe’s face and limbs froze. When finally he found his voice it rapped out with military precision: ‘Waterloo Bridge. We’ll never get a taxi at this time of night. Half a mile from here? We can run it in five minutes.’

He was sprinting out of the door before the river police had pulled themselves together. They pounded after him, boots thumping, capes flying.

As the door swung to behind them, the duty sergeant caught the eye of a passing constable who’d loitered to witness the strange scene. ‘’Struth! That got him moving! D’you see his face when the penny dropped? Wonder how many girls the old fart’s given his card to lately?’

‘Sounds like a case of unrequited affection to me,’ commented the bobby sentimentally. ‘Probably got some poor girl up the stick.’

Joe pounded along the Embankment, evening shoes giving him a perilous grip on the wet pavings. He looked ahead through the half-grown trees lining the river to the shimmering line of pale yellow lamps studding the bridge along its great length. Cleopatra’s Needle. More than halfway there. He tore off his tie and cracked open his collar. He pushed on, glad to hear his escort panting and cursing close behind.

Three young females. He’d given his card to three and that only yesterday. With dread he listed them. ‘Audrey, Melisande. . And her baby. .’ His heart gave a lurch which threatened to cut off his breathing as he added, ‘Little Dorcas.’

He could have asked the sergeant one simple question which would have reduced the choice to one: blonde, auburn or black hair? He knew very well why he’d not asked. One answer from the list would have been more than he could bear and he could not risk showing emotion right there at the reception desk.

It must be Dorcas, he decided. Driven to distraction by her grandmother’s cruelty she’d run away to London, swelling the numbers of waifs and strays who fetched up on the cold streets of the capital in their thousands. He’d been kind to her. Armitage had paid her flattering attention. Perhaps she’d been trying to contact one of them? He ran on. Without a word spoken, they all stopped and, hands on knees, gasping for breath, they tried to gain a measure of control before they entered the dismal little rescue room. The older of the two officers flung him a wounded look. ‘It’s all right, sir. She’s not going anywhere, whoever she is. Five minutes is neither here nor there for the deceased.’

‘It’s a bloody eternity for me,’ said Joe with passion.

A tug hooted mournfully, echoing his words. A sickening stench of decay belched from the ooze below. It was low tide and several yards of stinking mud fringed the sinister black slide of the river.

‘Let’s get on with it, shall we?’

They exchanged looks, nodded and went inside.

A third river officer was sitting over his tea, a brimming ashtray on the floor at his feet, filling in the crossword on the back of the Evening Standard. He shot to attention as they entered. In the centre of the room on a still-dripping truckle bed lay a white-shrouded figure. The cocktail of carbolic and Wimsol bleach was almost a relief after the river smells. As Joe advanced to lift the sheet he started in horror to hear a voice behind him intoning:

‘One more unfortunate,

Weary of breath,

Rashly importunate,

Gone to her death!

Take her up tenderly,

Lift her with care,

Fashioned so slenderly,

Young and so fair!’

Joe turned and addressed the sergeant angrily. ‘Who or what in hell is that?’

The sergeant’s voice was a placatory whisper. ‘Witness, sir. He was on the bridge when she jumped.’

A bear-like figure shambled forward into the light shed by the solitary electric bulb and presented himself.

‘He’s a down-and-out, sir. Harmless. We know him well. Came forward with information and we asked him to stay in case a statement was required. Name of Arthur.’

Joe turned to the man. ‘Arthur? Thank you for staying. And thank you for your sentiments. Now, gentlemen, shall we?’

The constable moved reverently to turn the sheet back.

Joe stared.

‘Young female,’ the elderly sergeant had said. And, in death, wiped clean of coquettish artifice, her doll’s face framed by a mop of curling blonde hair, Audrey had shed the years along with her life.

‘Known to you, sir?’ the sergeant enquired gently.

‘Yes. Audrey Blount. Miss Audrey Blount. I can give you her address. Two addresses in fact. She has a sister in Wimbledon, I understand. I interviewed her yesterday. . was it yesterday?. . Sunday, anyway. It was Sunday. You can have her taken to the morgue now. I’ll arrange for a police autopsy. Not usual, I know, but there are special circumstances. I’ll see that her next of kin are informed. Look, can you be certain it was suicide?’

‘Better have a word with old Arthur, sir. He’s very clear on what took place, you’ll find.’

‘I’d like to do that.’ He cast an eye around the crowded and unpleasant room. ‘But not here. I could do with some fresh air. How about you, Arthur? Shall we go up on to the bridge and you can tell me all about it?’

‘Here, take this spare cape, sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘Can get a bit nippy up there and there’s a mist rising.’

Joe approached the body and quietly spoke over it a further verse of Thomas Hood’s lugubrious poem. He’d always hated it but here, in these ghastly surroundings, it flooded back into his mind with awful appositeness.

‘Touch her not scornfully,

Think of her mournfully,

Gently and humanly,

Not of the stains of her. .’

His voice faltered for a moment and the deep baritone behind him finished for him:

‘All that remains of her

Now is pure womanly.’

Joe dashed a hand at his eyes. The sergeant passed him a crisp handkerchief. ‘Here. It’s the carbolic, sir. Fumes can get to you if you’re not used to it.’

‘If we go along to the very centre, I think you’ll find the air is fresher there. . I’m sorry — I don’t know your rank?’ said Arthur in a tone which would have sounded at home in a London club.

‘Commander Sandilands. CID.’

‘Indeed? How do you do? My name is Arthur as you have heard. Sometimes I’m known, in a jesting way, as King Arthur and this — ’ he waved expansively at the great length of the bridge — ‘is my kingdom.’

‘I had understood that gentlemen of the road were discouraged from taking up residence on His Other Majesty’s bridges,’ said Joe, responding in kind to the thespian flavour of his companion’s language.

‘Indeed. But I am happy to say I am tolerated here. This beautiful bridge — and being a man who appreciates the spare, the classically correct, the understated, I concur with Canova that it is the loveliest in London — is much frequented by tourists. Tourists have money to spend and even to give away and I find them very generous, particularly our American cousins. Very large-hearted. But they despise — and are embarrassed to find themselves despising — beggars. So, I entertain them to earn a copper or two. I tell them the history of the bridge; I identify the buildings to north and south from the dome of St Paul’s to the tower of Big Ben and I accompany my perorations with appropriate verses.’

‘I had marked your facility for poetic effusions,’ said Joe. ‘Look, can we stop all this nonsense, cut the cackle and get down to business?’

Arthur smiled. ‘You may be able to converse in the blunt transatlantic mode of recent fashion but I’m not sure I can change my style for a police interview. Though I will try.’

‘What were you in a previous existence? A schoolmaster? A butler?’

A flash of some emotion lit the old man’s eyes as he replied swiftly, ‘I employed both in my time. No matter.’

He quickened his pace and Joe plodded on, glad of the protection of the police cape as a chill breeze sprang up on nearing the middle. Arthur pointed to the central recess jutting out from the level bed of the nine-arched bridge, on the north-east side facing St Paul’s. Behind them, to the left, the lights of the Savoy Hotel shone out their seductive promise of warmth and comfort, a shimmering mirage when, yards away, under Joe’s feet, separated from them by a low balustrade, coiled the black river that had taken Audrey’s life. Joe hated crossing rivers. They were alive. They had a character, snake-like and sinister, which repelled him. He gripped the granite handrail tightly as they looked over. It eased his vertigo but could not dispel it. As they stood looking down with fascination Big Ben boomed out the twelve strokes of midnight.

‘That’s where she was standing.’

‘And where were you?’

‘There in the next recess. I was bedding down for the night.’ Arthur produced two penny coins from the depths of his hairy overcoat and held them in front of Joe’s face. ‘They can’t move you on if you’ve got visible means of support and twopence will pay for a night’s lodging. I always keep twopence handy.’

‘Very well. Let’s go to your recess then you can tell me what happened. Try to keep it short and clear, will you, Arthur? It’s been a long night already and it’s only just midnight.’

‘So I observe, Commander. Time first. You’ll need to establish the time,’ he began briskly. ‘Accuracy guaranteed by Big Ben over there. The lady came along this side of the bridge about two minutes before a quarter to nine sounded. I approached her and she was kind enough to give me a sixpence from her bag. Yes, she had a bag. It was not found with her body. They rarely are. They get washed away and picked up by mudlarks who do not turn them in. Pretty girl, in a good humour, I’d have said. I thought she might have been on her way to an assignation. She had that look of suppressed excitement about her.’

‘She didn’t strike you as a potential suicide?’

‘No. I would have taken strenuous steps to divert her from her intent, had I suspected that.’

Joe thought an intervention by Arthur might just well have tipped the balance. ‘And then?’

‘She stopped in the central bay and loitered. She looked at the river. She looked up and down the bridge. I assumed she was waiting for someone. As she stood there the nine strokes of the three-quarter hour sounded.’

‘Tell me what the conditions were? Light? Visibility? Were there people about?’

‘The gloomiest moment of the day. Exactly halfway between sunset at eight thirty and lighting-up time half an hour later. There was hardly anyone about. It’s a very still time. A couple passed. They crossed to the other side when they saw me. A few taxis went by. The eight forty-five omnibus clanged past on time. I began to bed down so I couldn’t see her any longer but I could hear.

‘A minute or two after she arrived, she greeted someone and held a brief conversation. A few minutes later, before the hour struck at any rate, I heard a shriek though at the time I thought it was a ship’s hooter and then there was a splash. I got up and looked about me and the bay was empty. The lights were not yet switched on and I could see only a few yards in the poor light. I assumed that she’d met her intended and gone onwards to the Embankment.

‘Just after half past nine o’clock I was disturbed by the river police and I volunteered to go with them to offer my observations. I expect they are also seeking the testimony of the last person to speak to her. The one she appeared to recognize. He passed the time of day with me before he approached her.’

‘Good Lord!’ said Joe. ‘Do you know what you’re saying?’

‘I do. I hope I express myself with clarity.’

‘Who was this man? Can you give me a description?’

‘Nothing easier, Commander!’ The old eyes twinkled with mischief. ‘It was a policeman.’