The Marx Sisters

5

From the car phone they arranged to interview Meredith Winterbottom’s son at his home later that afternoon. Kathy had to return to her divisional headquarters near by, where an incident room had been set up in an office adjoining her own, to check on the progress of the three other detectives who had been working their way round the neighbourhood that morning, interviewing potential witnesses. As she was about to leave, she hesitated a moment and then turned to Brock.

‘Sir, do you think I might be able to knock off by 7 tonight? I was at it till fairly late last night, and I sort of had something arranged for this evening. Of course, if you feel it’s important

…’

‘Not at all,’ Brock replied genially. ‘We should have done for the day well before then. And, anyway, it’s your case. We’ll do as you say.’

As she left, she thought uneasily that this certainly wasn’t the Chief Inspector Brock she’d heard about. Maybe he’s getting soft, she thought. Or maybe he’s like this until you make your first mistake.

Having arranged to meet her at 3, Brock strolled back to Rosenfeldt’s Continental Delicatessen. The shop smelled as good as it looked. Cheeses, wursts, breads, salamis and pickles filled it with layers of intriguingly delicate and pungent odours which varied subtly from corner to corner of the small space. Mrs Rosenfeldt came out from the rear in response to the tinkling bell over the door. She was a small woman in her late sixties, dressed simply in greys, who looked as if she might have suffered from some serious illness in recent years, or perhaps, further in the past, a spell in one of the Third Reich’s more horrific institutions. Her silver hair was drawn tightly back into a bun, emphasizing the lack of flesh on her skull. Her throat and wrists were corded and criss-crossed with what appeared to be pale scars. Yet the eyes that glittered through her steel-framed glasses were needle-sharp.

‘Good afternoon,’ Brock said amiably. ‘I am very interested in your bratwurst, and possibly some cheese, but perhaps you could give me a small guided tour of your specialities.’

Mrs Rosenfeldt gave a little smile and began to outline the things under the glass display cases. Brock settled for some pumpernickel, Westphalian ham, a jar of pickled herrings which he knew he should avoid, a dozen bratwurst (having established that freezing wouldn’t spoil their flavour), a large slice of Allgau cheese, some sliced poltava salami and a small tub of black kalamathes olives.

As she wrapped these up and placed them in a plastic carrier bag, Mrs Rosenfeldt said, ‘You’re one of the police looking into Mrs Winterbottom’s death, aren’t you?’ The way she said it suggested that death was a familiar fact which didn’t have to be hedged around with euphemisms or hushed tones. Her voice was low, almost masculine, and with a strong German or Central European accent.

‘That’s right. I understand you weren’t in your shop here yesterday?’

‘Yes. I spoke to a detective this morning.’

‘But you must have known Mrs Winterbottom well?’

‘She was my landlady.’

‘She seems to have been very popular in the neighbourhood.’

‘Oh, she knew everybody. Liked to know everything going on.’ The tone suggested some reservations about people who liked to know everything going on.

‘You mean she might have been a bit too concerned with other people’s business?’

‘I didn’t say that. I was very fond of her, myself.’

‘But others weren’t?’

She hesitated. ‘All I’d say is’-she stared intently at Brock-‘when I heard that she might have been murdered, my first thought was, they should speak to those Nazis in the Croatia Club.’

‘Nazis?’

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I’ve said enough. I have to live here, you know. I said what I said. Maybe it’s a clue for you, maybe not, I don’t know.’

Brock picked up his carrier bag and thanked her. As the door tinkled shut behind him he turned and looked back through the shop window. She was standing motionless in the shadows at the back of the shop, a pale wraith, watching him.

On the drive down through South London to Kent, Kathy told Brock what the door-to-door inquiries had produced.

‘It’s extraordinary, isn’t it, in a street like that, with the net curtains twitching every time we appeared this morning, that nobody admits to having been by a window overlooking either the front or the back of number 22 yesterday afternoon. Not one.’

‘Always the way. Anybody remember seeing any strangers in the block?’

‘Well, the thing is that there are always strangers passing through, so no one takes any notice unless they do something odd. It’s like living next to a railway line. After a while you just don’t hear the trains any more. The only outdoor areas you’d call private are the yards behind the buildings. Mr Hepple parks his car in one of them when he comes, and there’s a jumble of sheds and open yards with an access passage from Carlisle Street on the west side of the block. But no one remembers seeing anybody there yesterday afternoon. It’s all very frustrating. Inspector MacDonald said he wanted Mollineaux and the other two for another job, and I couldn’t really argue.’

‘Never mind. Perhaps Mr Winter-without-the-bottom will break down and confess when we beat him about the head and shoulders with a bratwurst. Did you get some lunch, by the way?’

Kathy shook her head and accepted Brock’s invitation to help herself from his bag while he told her about Mrs Rosenfeldt’s ‘clue’. She groaned. ‘Geriatric Nazis are all we need. The press’ll get to hear of it, and then the whole thing will blow up in our faces when we discover the old lady had a heart attack after all.’ She peeled off several slices of salami and took a few olives.

‘But you don’t really think so, do you?’

Kathy paused, and then said ‘No, sir, I don’t. I don’t know what it is, but I felt it was wrong when I first went into that flat yesterday, and the feeling’s never left me since. I know it sounds weak in the circumstances.’

‘Not at all, Kathy,’ Brock said. ‘I always have feelings about cases. I think you may be right. It’s just doubly important to check everything.’

‘Sir, can I ask you about something that Hepple raised? It’s bothered me too. This case, it’s not exactly the Manchester Poisoner, at least not yet. I was surprised the Yard wanted to get involved. And then when they said it would be you-well, it just seemed unlikely.’

Brock smiled. ‘ “The Yard moves in mysterious ways, its blunders to perform”… Actually, I never really know what they’ll put me on next. Part of the attraction. I agree that this didn’t sound too promising at first, but I’m rather enjoying it. Don’t mind, do you, me tagging along?’

‘Oh no! Of course not. It’s great being able to work with someone like you. It was just-well, after your last case, I mean this isn’t the same sort of high-profile thing at all.’

Brock’s previous case, the ‘City Securities Slayings’ Mr Hepple had referred to, had been in the headlines for weeks. Two young police officers had been shot dead in the City by a gang escaping with the contents of a bank’s security boxes. Brock, in charge of a team drawn from the Serious Crime Branch and Robbery Squad, had eventually identified the gang leader as Gregory Thomas North, a professional criminal with a record of violent robberies, known as Upper North because of his dangerous habit of psyching himself with stimulants before a job. On the point of arrest, North had disappeared, surfacing a few days later in South America, beyond the reach of extradition.

‘Everyone in Division got really worked up over that,’ Kathy said. ‘Half of us had been on the case, anyway, doing leg work for the Yard, and when it turned out the way it did… You must have felt terrible, sir.’

‘Yes, well, we may yet have a little surprise in store for friend North,’ Brock grunted. He said no more, and they continued in silence through the southern boroughs until they came out among the oak and silver birch woods around Chislehurst Common.

Terry and Caroline Winter lived in a house called Oakdene, which was separated from the road by a lawn, rose beds and a red-brick drive, much of which was obscured by expensive silver German cars. The house belonged to the Tudorbethan school of suburban domestic architecture, built in the thirties when Lutyens’ models were still fresh and were copied with some substance and conviction. Wall panels of herring-bone-patterned red brickwork were framed by dark, heavy timbers and sheltered by a wide gabled roof, whose clay tiles were now dark green with algae nurtured by the broad overhanging boughs of oak and ash. A light visible through the diamond-paned leadlight windows of the ground floor shone out against the gloom of the afternoon.

Brock parked in the street and they walked to the front door, breathing in the damp, lonely smells of autumn woodland. Terry answered the door and led them across a dark panelled hall into the lounge. The central heating was up high, and he wore a black shirt and jeans, both with conspicuous designer labels. The sleeves of his shirt were loosely rolled back on his forearms, exposing a heavy gold chain on one wrist and an expensive-looking gold watch on the other. He looked younger than his early forties, with a lean, tanned face and thick, dark wavy hair. He indicated casually towards the new leather suite and flopped into a director’s chair on a swivel base.

‘Well,’ he said in a neutral voice, ‘what’s the story?’

Kathy answered. ‘We still aren’t sure of the cause of your mother’s death, Mr Winter. We hope to have that established soon, but in the meantime there are procedures we work through which are designed to help us clarify the situation. We interview neighbours, close relatives…’

‘And solicitors, apparently,’ Winter interrupted smoothly. His eyes flicked quickly, appraisingly over Kathy, and he gave her a wolfish smile. ‘I’ve just had Mr Hepple on the phone. He seemed to feel that, since he’d told you the contents of my mother’s will, he might as well let me know too.’

‘Weren’t you familiar with the terms of your mother’s will before then?’ Kathy said quietly, holding his eyes.

‘In general terms. Mum had told me what she had in mind.’

‘And were you happy about the arrangements? I’m thinking about the term that allowed your aunts to stay at 22 Jerusalem Lane in perpetuity.’

His face became expressionless, his eyes cold. He stared at Kathy rudely for a while, examining the dimple on her chin. Then he shrugged and, rocking slightly in his chair, which gave a little squeak, he turned to Brock.

‘Up to her. It was her house. She always felt kind of protective towards Eleanor and Peg. I think she felt the old ducks didn’t know how to look after themselves. Not really practical like, in business matters.’ He turned back to Kathy and grinned deliberately at her.

At that moment his wife entered the room. She was an attractive strawberry-blonde, carefully groomed to a casual wind-ruffled look, and dressed in a silk shirt and loose linen trousers. She glanced at her husband, took in his leer at Kathy and walked over to the two officers to shake their hands.

‘We’re sorry to disturb you and your husband, Mrs Winter,’ Kathy said. ‘It must have been upsetting for you both.’

‘Oh, yeah.’ Like her husband, her accent was broad cockney, which she had made huskier over the years, especially with strangers. ‘It was unexpected. Even though she was over seventy, she was always very lively. She was a real character.’ The way she narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips might have been taken to mean that ‘character’ was the most charitable word she could find for her mother-in-law.

‘I felt so helpless, too, when Eleanor phoned, not being able to find Terry, and then having to tell him such a dreadful thing over the phone, when he did eventually ring in.’ She looked angelic as she laid this out so sweetly. Her husband’s chair squeaked more loudly, and a frown passed briefly across his face.

‘Your husband was out yesterday afternoon?’ Kathy said easily, girl to girl.

‘Yeah,’ Terry Winter broke in. ‘I often am on a Sunday afternoon. That’s when I go round the salons, checking stock for the next week. It’s the only chance I get.’

‘What salons are those, sir?’ Kathy asked.

‘Victor Haircare. I franchise five salons in the south-east.’

‘Oh yes, I know them.’ Kathy smiled. ‘That’s where I go, on the Finchley Road.’

‘No, that’s not one of mine. Mine are all south of the river. Lewisham, Forest Hill, Peckham, New Cross and Deptford.’

‘So you drive round all of those on a Sunday afternoon?’

‘Yeah. The managers leave out their stock books for me and I order up for the next week. I don’t let them do that.’

‘What time did you leave home yesterday?’

‘About 2.’

‘More like 1.30, wasn’t it, darling?’

Caroline smiled sympathetically at her husband, then turned to Brock. ‘He works so hard.’

‘Maybe,’ said Terry, shrugging.

‘And Eleanor phoned when?’

‘Oh, about 5.30. There was a programme I’d been watching on holidays in the Pacific. It had just ended. Well, first I tried Terry’s car phone, and there was no reply, so then I started phoning round all the salons. But there was no reply at any of them, either. I was getting really worried.’ She turned to Kathy who noticed her startling violet eyes, and wondered whether she was wearing coloured contact lenses.

‘I thought, what if Terry’s had an accident, just at the time when his mother’s had one too. Wouldn’t that be just too awful?’

‘I was at Deptford, the last one.’ Terry’s words cut across the end of her sentence. ‘Before I went in I parked the car and went to the cafe next door for a cup of coffee. When I got through in the salon I got into the car and thought I’d better ring Caroline to let her know I was on my way.’

‘At what time?’

Terry looked as if he was uncertain, but Caroline smoothly answered, ‘Oh, well after 6. I was going round the twist. Well, I’d phoned all the numbers twice by this time and I didn’t know what to do. I was on the point of calling the police, you know?’

‘Oh Christ, Caroline, you’re exaggerating. It wasn’t that long.’

‘So after you eventually spoke to your wife, sir, you turned directly back towards the City and went to your mother’s house?’

‘Yeah, sure.’

‘Arriving there’-Kathy consulted her notebook-‘at6.33.’

There was a moment’s silence, and then Caroline got to her feet brightly. ‘I’ll make some tea,’ she said. ‘OK for everyone?’

Kathy got up too and said, ‘I’ll give you a hand, if that’s all right. I’m always nosy to see other people’s kitchens, actually.’

‘Oh well, you’ve come to the wrong place then,’ Caroline said as they went through a panelled connecting door. ‘I’m about to have all this redone.’

Kathy looked around at the gleaming appliances and crisp white ranges of cupboards and units. ‘Oh! It’s beautiful.’

‘No.’ Caroline curled her lip. ‘It’s all wrong. I’ve never liked it much. There’s much better equipment on the market now. And I’m going to have it all done in oak-to go with the house, you know?’

The worktop on the island unit in the middle of the room was covered with open magazines of kitchen designs, but there was no sign of food or recipe books.

Kathy looked round as the door from the hall clicked open and a young woman stood in the opening. She stared at Kathy in surprise.

‘Oh, this is one of our two girls, Sergeant. Alex, say hello to the Sergeant-I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.’

‘Kolla. Kathy Kolla. Hello, Alex. How are you?’

The girl muttered something indistinct and ducked her head. Kathy judged her to be hardly out of her teens. Beneath thick spectacle lenses her eyes looked red and blotchy, and her mother went over to her, crooning sympathetically.

‘All right, luv?’ She turned to Kathy as she put an arm round her daughter’s shoulder. ‘She was really cut up about her gran, weren’t you, luv?’

Kathy saw the girl wince under her mother’s grip. She seemed the most unlikely of offspring for the Winters, physically awkward, socially uncomfortable and apparently uninterested in her appearance. She stood for a moment, ungainly and morose while Caroline dug her long painted nails into her arm, then pulled away and ran back across the hall and up the stairs.

‘She’s upset.’ Caroline screwed up her cute little nose. ‘You don’t need her, do you?’

In the living room, Terry got to his feet. At first it didn’t look as if he knew why, then he pulled out a packet of cigarettes and offered one to Brock, who shook his head. Terry pulled out a small gold lighter and lit up, inhaling deeply on the first drag.

‘This ain’t easy,’ he said. ‘You can understand how someone feels when their mother’s just died. Especially if people are suggesting she might have been murdered.’

‘Of course,’ Brock said. ‘I remember when my mother died. She was in hospital. When I left I got on a bus to go home, and it reached the depot before I realized I’d gone in the opposite direction.’

Terry nodded.

‘The Sergeant wasn’t trying to be intrusive about her will,’ Brock said, his brows knitted with concern. ‘But it was a natural thing to wonder, when we heard the conditions. I suppose I might have been a bit annoyed with my old mum if she’d left me something, but then said in effect I couldn’t have it for, well, who knows? Twenty, thirty years?’

Terry looked at him suspiciously. ‘My aunts are entitled to feel some security at their time of life. I don’t begrudge them that.’

‘They’re quite a formidable pair, your aunts, aren’t they?’ Brock said.

‘Mad as hatters,’ Caroline replied, bringing in the tea, and then, seeing the expression on her husband’s face, corrected herself. ‘No, they’re sweeties really. I get on well with them, especially Peg. I think Eleanor disapproves of me sometimes.’

She giggled and poured out the tea.