The Marx Sisters

15

They couldn’t get any reply when they rang Bob Jones’s office, and when there was no answer from his home number in Paddington either, they decided to drive over there.

Regent Gardens was in effect an elongated square, with two long rows of cream-stuccoed terraces facing each other across a central grass strip. A series of columned porticos projected forward from the terraces to form entrance porches. Their front doors were approached across steps built over the moat which provided light to the basement rooms. In 1815 these terraces were among the most soughtafter of the new residential developments springing up to the west of Regent’s Park. Each portico provided a fashionable Doric address (noble, severe and indomitable, in keeping with the mood after the victory of Waterloo) for a family of the merchants and minor branches of nobility who moved in to speculate on rising property prices, and were soon to be disappointed by the crash which followed. Now each portico sheltered an untidy panel of door buzzers, intercoms and name cards, the steps accommodated ranks of empty milk bottles, and the narrow roads which ran along the front of the terraces were jammed with cars and motor bikes parked on meters.

Bob Jones’s flat was on the ground floor. The front door to the building was slightly ajar, and Brock and Kathy went in, pushing past a padlocked bicycle just inside. At the far end of the hall a flight of stairs rose beneath an unshaded bulb, and two tall panelled doors faced each other halfway down the length of the hall. The one on the right was open.

Or, rather, it was hanging from the jamb, its frame broken and smashed as by a sledge-hammer. They stepped over splintered wood and looked inside. The place had been trashed. Furniture was tipped over, table legs smashed, cushions ripped. Across the far wall of the room a message had been sprayed in black letters a metre high. FUCK YOU YUPPIE PIG. In the centre of the room, sitting on the floor among the debris, was Bob Jones.

‘Are you all right?’ Kathy asked.

He looked up, slightly dazed. ‘Hello… Look what they’ve done to my books, the bastards.’ All around him were architectural books, their backs broken, pages ripped. ‘They were about the only things I took with me when Helen and I split up. I thought I’d start afresh, but I couldn’t bear to let go of my books. And now they’re gone, too.’

‘What happened?’

He took a deep breath and struggled to his feet. Kathy gave him a hand.

‘They came back again, didn’t they?’

‘Who?’

He shrugged. ‘The first time was about six months ago. I came home and someone had broken the lock and taken my CD player and the video. So I replaced them with the insurance, and put better locks on the door. Three months later they came again. That time they broke the locks open with a jemmy and took the new stuff I’d just got. So I replaced it again and put locking bolts in the door and a steel angle in the jamb. So this time they didn’t bother with the locks, they just smashed the door in on the hinge side and did this.’

‘Have they stolen the electrical equipment again?’

He looked around. ‘Looks like it. Perhaps it’s a regular three-month thing. They’ve probably got computer files of people who’ve been done over, with dates of when they’re due for another check-up, like the dentist.’

‘Were they this violent before?’

‘No, not at all. The only damage in the past has been to the door. Maybe they got annoyed at having to work so hard to get in.’

‘We’d better call the local CID from the car,’ Kathy said. ‘Your phone seems to be out of action.’

‘What’s the point? They’ll never catch them. Last time I told them about the gang of kids that terrorizes the street-ten and eleven-year-olds-throwing stones through the windows, smashing milk bottles, slashing tyres, that sort of thing. The policeman told me I should get an air gun and shoot pellets at them. I ask you.’

Kathy looked around. The flat was one large room, once the main reception room of the house, and tall enough for Bob to have inserted a sleeping deck across one end, with a galley kitchen and bathroom tucked in beneath it. Access to the upper deck was by a stair almost as steep as a ladder. The furnishings were spartan-canvas blinds rolled at the windows, photographic studio lights, industrial book-shelving, a few pieces of cheap Habitat furniture.

‘Where’s the letter you told us about?’ she asked.

‘I put it back in its frame. It was hanging over there.’

They looked in the corner he indicated, then among the wreckage, but found no sign of it.

Kathy went out to the car to call for the local police while Jones made coffee and Brock righted some chairs and cleared a space. When they sat down, Kathy spoke.

‘They’ll be here in a bit. Meantime, perhaps you could help us with the reason we came round here, Mr Jones. We were a little uncertain about a couple of points in your statement yesterday. Could we just go over a bit of it again?’

He sighed. ‘Which bit?’

‘The bit about finding Meredith Winterbottom asleep. Describe for us again exactly what happened when you arrived at Jerusalem Lane last Sunday.’

‘Oh, that bit.’ Jones seemed suddenly flat, defeated. He sighed again, lowered his head and began to recount what had happened-ringing the doorbell, going upstairs, entering Meredith’s flat, Judith looking round the bedroom door and seeing Meredith asleep, him going upstairs to check the sisters. Then he stopped.

‘Go on,’ Kathy prodded.

He lifted his head and looked at her, then at Brock.

‘You know, don’t you?’

Kathy got a tingling sensation along her spine.

‘Tell us.’

‘She wasn’t asleep. She was dead. When I got down from knocking on the sisters’ doors Judith met me in the passage. She seemed shocked, and didn’t say anything at first. I asked what was wrong, and then she told me that she’d tried to wake Mrs Winterbottom, and she couldn’t. She said she must have had a stroke or a heart attack or something. I said I’d ring for an ambulance, but then…’

‘Yes?’

‘She said there wasn’t any point, and, anyway, she couldn’t afford any delay which might make her miss her plane. She asked if I could wait until after her flight before telling anyone. Then she said that as she had come all this way, she wanted to search the flat to check if Mrs Winterbottom had brought anything for her. I didn’t like the idea of that at all. I said, suppose the sisters come back, how would it look? So she asked me to go down to the front door and if anyone came in to act as if I was on my way out for help.’

‘Well?’

‘That’s what I did. No one came. After five minutes or so I became impatient and called out to her. I started to go upstairs again, but she came running out and we left. She said she’d found nothing.’

‘Was she carrying anything?’

‘Her bag. A shoulder bag. A bit bigger than yours.’

‘Then what?’

‘I took her to the airport. Her flight didn’t leave till 7, and she made me promise not to do anything myself before then. If anyone asked, I was to say that we’d called on Mrs Winterbottom that afternoon as arranged, but had got no reply. I had no idea that anyone had seen us actually go in to number 22.

‘On my way back from Heathrow I returned to Jerusalem Lane, and saw the ambulance. I thought, well, it’s taken care of now, there’s no point in doing anything more. Then when I read the newspaper report about suspicious circumstances, I… well, I just wanted to forget the whole thing.’

‘You said you suspected Derek Slade of some involvement.’

‘Oh, not seriously. Not when you actually say it like that. It’s just something that went through my mind, that’s all.’

‘Why not Judith Naismith?’

Jones looked at his hands.

‘Yes. I thought about that, too. But that’s just as absurd. More so. Judith could never… kill anyone.’

‘Did you see or hear Meredith Winterbottom yourself at any point that afternoon?’

‘No.’

‘So you can’t say whether she was alive or dead at any stage in your visit.’

‘No.’

Behind them two detectives from the local CID had arrived at the door.

‘We’ll go now, Mr Jones. Don’t leave town.’

When they got back to the car, Brock said, ‘Coincidence?’

‘I don’t know. It’s not like a professional thief to waste time leaving messages and causing unnecessary damage. At least we’d better check if they come up with any fingerprints.’

‘Well, anyway, Kathy, this case gets better and better. First we get to go to Eastbourne, now it looks as if you’ve earned yourself a trip to the USA.’

But it wasn’t to be.

The following morning Brock and Kathy met in Kathy’s office at ED Division. Kathy, furious, was pacing the three metres between the filing cabinets and the door. Brock sat quietly in the steel-framed chair by the window.

‘I just can’t believe it,’ she said. ‘Inspector McDonald just told me.’

‘Yes, he rang me just before I left the Yard. Did he give you any details?’

‘Only that he spoke with the coroner last night, and somebody called Marsden at the DPP’s office this morning. They don’t think there’s any point in proceeding with the case. There’ll be an inquest, but the coroner’s private opinion at this stage is that Meredith was suffering from depression and committed suicide with the plastic bag after making herself drowsy with the port and sedative. The sisters discovered her either before or after their walk and removed the plastic bag before calling for help. That’s not right, Brock! If they discovered her before the walk, they wouldn’t have gone, they’d have called for help then. And if it was afterwards, then Judith Naismith would have seen the bag over her head.’

‘What did McDonald say to that?’

‘We don’t know what Judith Naismith saw, and it would be too much trouble to find out. And, anyway, Meredith might just have had a heart attack after all-the forensic evidence is inconclusive. According to Inspector McDonald it simply isn’t worth pursuing, not with all the other urgent things needing our attention.’ She sighed. ‘I’m going to Jerusalem Lane to speak to the sisters, tell them that we no longer think it could have been murder. At least they’ll be relieved. Everyone in the Lane will be, except maybe Mrs Rosenfeldt, who was convinced it was all a Nazi plot.’

‘Hmm, too bad. It was intriguing, but maybe they’re right.’

‘Bullshit, sir. You know they’re not.’

Brock smiled. ‘At any rate, Kathy, it’s been a pleasure working with you. I hope we meet again.’ He held out his hand.

‘Yes.’ Kathy stopped pacing and smiled. ‘Yes, I hope so.’