A Commonplace Killing (16 page)

E
velyn was sitting at the kitchen table rolling a cigarette with enormous concentration, shreds of tobacco straggling from either end. Lillian watched her with distaste.

“Must you do that at the table, dear?” It was pointless to say anything: the kid just did whatever she wanted without any regard for anyone else. “It’s not very ladylike, is it? Looks like the sort of thing a navvy would do.”

“It’s cheaper than cigarettes, ain’t it?” She lifted the half-built cigarette to her lips and licked the edge of the paper. “Loads of girls have taken it up.” She looked at the result of her labour with pride. “’Ere, you’ll never guess what,” she said.

“What now?”

“Mr Newman offered me a quarter-pound box of Cadbury’s Tray under the counter.”

“I hope you took it.”

Evelyn brushed the pieces of tobacco from the table and pinched them back into the packet. “I don’t care for chocs,” she was saying. “I need to watch my figure. That’s why I smoke. “You could have taken the chocs for Mother, or Douglas. You’re not the only person living in this house.” Evelyn looked genuinely surprised, as if this had not occurred to her; which of course it hadn’t. “It would have been a nice gesture – seeing as you haven’t paid a penny in rent since heaven knows when.”

“Oh, please don’t start on that again, Lil. You know I’ve been trying ever so hard to find something. Anyway, Walter told me not to worry about the rent…”

“Did he? Well, it isn’t Walter’s house. It’s Mother’s, and he has no right to decide who gets to do what under this roof.” She was taken aback by the fury of her reaction: her face was blazing with indignation, with the damn cheek of it. Either that or it was the Change.

Evelyn had returned her attention to her cigarette.

“You shouldn’t talk like that, Lil,” she said. “Men don’t like being made to feel small.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask what was meant by that, but there was no point in eliciting what would no doubt be a lengthy explanation, chiefly drawn from things that Evelyn had read in the women’s pages. She did not have the energy to listen, much less enter into an earnest rebuttal. A weary sigh followed by an awkward silence was the best reaction – awkward for her, that is, since Evelyn was incapable of picking up on any sort of atmosphere – an awkward silence laden with a long-suppressed urge to scream or to drink bleach – to make some sort of gesture – agitating her nerves beyond endurance.

It often occurred to her that there was something so mean and slighting about the situation she found herself in, that it was almost comical. And it was easy to imagine that somewhere somebody was indeed having a good laugh at her expense. She glowered at the array of groceries spread out on the table with a deep-seated resentment, and wondered how on earth she was supposed to make a meal for four of them with such ridiculous ingredients. And then do the same tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. But it was not the utter hopelessness of it all that was funny, so much as the sad fact that she still had hopes that somehow things would change for the better; that in some curious, as yet imperceptible way she would know joy, wealth, luxuries: all the things to which she had, surely by now, entitlement. It pained her to think back to that brief period of happiness, when she had gone out with the gang, possessed of an authentic undeniable attraction which had enabled her to take part in another sort of life altogether. It seemed impossible to her that those days really were gone.

“I’ll bet that Julian Huxley can get his hands on anything he wants,” she said, “and then he has the nerve to come on the wireless and tell the rest of us we never had a healthier diet.” Evelyn struck a match and for a moment was obscured behind a dense choking cloud of smoke. “Oh, those things smell awful, Evvie.” She grimaced. “I don’t know how you can smoke them. You must be desperate is all I can say.” She was waving her hand about in front of her face in an exaggerated fashion. “What did he want for them?”

“Who?”

“Mr Newman – what did he want for the Cadbury Tray?”

“Ooh Lil! ’Ere - whaddya take me for?” Evelyn laughed. “What would you have done for a box of chocs then, eh, Lil?”

“That’s for me to know and you to wonder about,” she said breezily, though her heart was not in it. She felt herself soften, the urge to do something significant subsiding. “Evvie, will you help me with my hair later? Just the back of it…”

“Course. Going to meet your fancy man, are you? I tell you, he didn’t half like you, that spiv. He weren’t bad-looking neither.”

“Shut up, Evelyn!” she cried. The girl was looking at her, wide-eyed, open-mouthed; shocked. She wondered why she had done that. “If you must know,” she said, “I was thinking of going to the Odeon tonight.” In truth this had only just occurred to her, and now that it had been uttered she felt a distinct flutter of anticipation in the pit of her stomach: a thrill. It was only the pictures, she told herself. Nothing will come of it. He probably won’t even be there.

“I thought you said you’d seen the big picture and it weren’t any good,” said Evelyn.

“I only said that to get rid of that awful woman – besides, that was the Mayfair. I’m going to the Odeon… maybe… It depends on how I’m feeling later on. I’m done in right now…”

She was concocting menus in her head. Cooked-meat
sandwiches
. Macaroni in sauce made from the tinned milk – she had a bit of flour somewhere and their butter ration, and some of that Canadian powdered cheese which was alright mixed up in something. Or she could make them potatoes in their jackets with a little bit of the butter and a spoonful each of the powdered cheese. All the proper food went to the Germans, she thought. She used to believe that there must be some good Germans, that they couldn’t all be Nazis, that some of them must have been ordinary women like her – housewives and mothers, just getting by. But after the horror camps she wasn’t so sure.

“I thought that Nesta was alright,” said Evelyn. She was relighting her cigarette again, a small pile of spent matches at her elbow. “A bit of a laugh…”

“She was very common. Not the sort of person you should be consorting with, Evvie.”

“She knew where to get things an’ all. ’Ere, I wouldn’t mind going to that pub they were talking about. The Feathers. How about it, Lil? Go on… Make a change…”

“You go on your own, Evelyn, if that’s what you want. Maybe the spiv’ll give you twenty cigs, if you play your cards right…”

“Oooh, Lil, what are you like? You are awful, no, really you are.”

This time she did not join in the kid’s joking. It was time to look in on Mother. The thought wearied her. She’d make up a little bit of bread and milk to take up to her.

“There’s a pile of linen on the floor in Mother’s room,” she said. “I’ll give you half a crown…”

The kid was lighting her cigarette again, the dense smoke making her cough.

“I’ll go up now if you like,” she said cheerfully.

“Would you, Evvie? You’re a pal.”

She cut a thin slice of the loaf, poured a bit of the tinned milk over it and sprinkled a spoonful of sugar on the top. “Try her with this, though I don’t suppose you’ll get very far…”

Evelyn balanced the half-smoked cigarette – which had once more gone out of its own accord – on the edge of the ashtray, intending to return to it later. Lillian could hear her humming as she went upstairs. A dance tune. She went to the dresser and took a knife from the drawer, sat down at the table and began to peel the potatoes. Mash and luncheon meat, with the runner beans: that would have to do them. She’d like to see Julian Huxley do better. They ought to give housewives a medal.

P
olicewoman Tring was bright-eyed, smooth cheeks flushed with a sense of achievement; she was starched and crisp and clean-limbed. The crumpled men in the incident room were looking upon her as if she was some fabulous creature which had suddenly, magically, appeared in their midst; manifesting out of the cigarette pall, among the dirty teacups and the greasy telephones, the untidy piles of papers and the chewed pencils. Cooper was as dumbstruck as the rest of them; even Lucas had permitted the corner of his mouth to turn up ever so slightly in wonder.

She had done everything Cooper had requested in a matter of a few hours. She had telephoned the gentlemen account-holders on the list from Gamages; she had been to the Odeon with the victim’s photograph. And this assiduity had garnered two pieces of essential information which she was now recounting to the rest of the team, sorely depleted since the detective sergeant had been despatched to an attempted jewellery theft.

“Mr Vickers had a suitcase stolen from King’s Cross a week before the murder,” she was telling them. “I’ve checked the crime report and it tallies with everything he told me on the telephone. The suitcase was being forwarded to Edinburgh where he was going on business. It contained a number of items of gentleman’s clothing – quality items, valued at £163.14/6d. Apart from the mackintosh, there was a pair of shoes, three shirts, some underclothing, a pair of pyjamas, a travel clock, a pair of cufflinks – and a green tweed swingback jacket.” She beamed at Cooper. “A green tweed jacket,” she repeated. “Green tweed – like the strand of wool retrieved from the victim…”

“Good work, Tring.” He wanted to sound as if he was conceding a point, but grudgingly. She really was very lovely, that much was obvious even to a blind fool, but on no account could he risk letting her know that he thought as much; risk her putting him off. He was, he assumed, almost certainly in love with her; he supposed that to acknowledge this had the benefit of giving him something with which to occupy himself, another dimension to a life that had become arid and flat. It was a
cherished
secret. Other people had secrets, so why not him?

“How did you get on at the picture-house?” he inquired, not looking at her, pretending to peruse some papers he had been carrying around all morning. He was punishing himself; not her. She could not have cared less; had no thought of him.

“She’s done very well there too, guv,” said Lucas. Cooper had never heard his DI utter a single word of encouragement before. He was astonished. “We’ve brought in the cinema manager and he’s made a positive sighting of the victim. Says he saw her enter the cinema at about five and twenty past seven on the Saturday. He recognised her, knew her slightly to say hello to. She told him she was done in. He said she looked tired, but not at all agitated. He’s pretty certain that she left at half past ten along with everyone else. He says there was nobody in the cinema after that time apart from himself.”

“Did he notice whether she was with anyone?” asked Cooper.

“No,” said Policewoman Tring, darting a look at Lucas, concerned that she might be speaking out of turn, but too eager to prevent herself from doing just that. Lucas nodded slight acquiescence and brushed cigarette ash from his lapel. “But then he didn’t actually see her leave,” the girl continued. “It’s just that he would have noticed if she’d left earlier than that – I mean before the picture ended – or if she was still in the cinema when he prepared to close it.”

Cooper considered the implications of this.

“So,” he said, “either Wilkes and Frobisher are lying when they told us that the victim said she was going to her sister’s in Jaywick, or she told them that for some reason of her own. The visit to the picture-house certainly ties in with the son’s statement, and he has no apparent reason to lie to us about his mother’s intentions. He also hinted that his father may have invented the whole Jaywick Sands story in order to put up some sort of front of respectability – understandable, perhaps, in the circumstances, and not in itself an indication of guilt or complicity…”

“She was intending all the time to go to the picture. She’d planned to meet up with her fancy man,” said Lucas flatly.

“Or,” said Cooper, “is the whole story about this spiv – this Dennis – a concoction of Wilkes and Frobisher? I don’t
recollect
any Dennises coming up before now, do you? And between us I think we must know every spiv in north London.”

Lucas shook his head and sighed.

“But the green tweed jacket,” said Policewoman Tring. A host of bloodshot eyes turned to her in dull amazement. “And the mackintosh…” she faltered, suddenly self-conscious. “Unless…” she looked perplexed. “Are you saying that the victim’s husband is the person who stole the suitcase?”

Lucas lit a cigarette, his hands cupped around it as if he were in a wind.

“Whoever pinched the suitcase,” he said, “had access to the raincoat and a green tweed jacket. So, either he’s the killer, or someone he knows is.”

“I want this Dennis found,” said Cooper.

“He’s a spiv in Holloway.” Lucas turned his palms up in an uncharacteristically expansive gesture. “If he exists we’ll turn him up.” It was the first time so far on the case that Cooper had heard him say anything positive. And he was further astonished to see that Lucas was actually smiling at Policewoman Tring: as a matter of fact, DI Frank Lucas was beaming, for what was quite possibly the first time in his life.

 

The café was a hell of steam, grease and cigarette smoke, through which could be glimpsed a large, heavily tattooed fellow. He was standing behind the counter, studying the racing tips beside a large belching tea-urn. He failed to respond with alacrity to Cooper’s request for information.

“This is a murder investigation,” Cooper prompted.

The large fellow shrugged as if to say it was nothing to do with him. He returned his attention to the sporting pages,
effectively
dismissing Cooper from his premises. Cooper glanced at Policewoman Tring and rolled his eyes, which made her smile. He was so pleased that she had asked to come with him. He had hoped that she might, and nerved himself to agree to the request; not that he had any intention of pursuing anything, naturally; not unless she showed her hand first and gave him some impression of what she thought about him. He was already making a fool of himself, but so far only in his own eyes.

“Does anyone called Dennis come in here?” he asked the café proprietor.

“Can’t say he does,” the fellow said without looking up.

“Think back to last Saturday afternoon.”

The café proprietor made an unconvincing show of doing just that, stroking his chin in mock contemplation.

“A lot of people come in here,” he said at last, the pantomime having run its course, and returned to his paper.

Cooper leaned on the counter. There was a basket containing a few very small eggs next to the urn. He pointed casually at it.

“Where do you get your supplies?”

“Now you look here,” said the proprietor, drawing himself up to his full height. “I keep myself to myself, see, and I expect my customers to do the same. Most of them just sit there and make a cup of tea last till Kingdom Come. I don’t speak to them and they don’t speak to me. And I don’t care who they are or what they are. As long as they have the readies and don’t cause any trouble, they can do what they bloody well like.”

“What about a woman called Nesta?”

“I don’t check their flamin’ identity cards.”

Cooper inspected his nails.

“Was there anyone else in here on Saturday afternoon,” he asked, “who might be able to assist us?”

The fellow licked his thumb and forefinger with studied deliberation and slowly turned a page of his newspaper. Cooper regarded him with an implacable air. He wanted to grab the bastard by the scruff of his neck and haul him over the counter, but he knew that to do so would have yielded only partial success.

“You know, I can wait here all day,” he said.

The café proprietor tried to ignore him for a few more moments, but he knew when a copper had the better of him.

“Joyce!” he called, without looking up. “Come out here will you. There’s a nosy bogey asking questions.”

A young girl emerged from behind a filthy curtain drawn across a doorway at the back of the counter. She wiped her shiny brow with her hands, smearing them down the front of her grubby apron.

“What is it?” she whined. “I’m trying to get those rolls buttered before the lunchtime rush.” Cooper glanced over at Policewoman Tring with a sardonic raise of his eyebrows, which made her grin. It was hard to imagine anything approaching a rush in that godforsaken place.

“I’m so sorry to interrupt your duties, miss,” he said with just a trace of irony. “We have a couple of questions. It shouldn’t take long, and then you can get back to your bread and butter.”

The girl lifted a damp curl from her forehead, which enabled him to see that she was frowning. She was a brunette, about eighteen, nineteen, he reckoned with his detective’s unerring instinct for such things, and in point of fact, pretty well made despite the squint.

The café proprietor was tracing the runners in the 2.30 at Newmarket with his forefinger.

“Says it’s a murder investigation,” he grunted.

“Murder?” The waitress glanced nervously at her employer, though it was clear that her interest had been aroused.

“We’re looking for a fellow called Dennis who was in here on Saturday afternoon.”

“Is he the murderer?”

“He might be able to help us with our inquiries.”

“So he hasn’t murdered anyone then?”

Cooper sighed.

“He’s in his early twenties,” he said, “slim build, fair hair. He was in here on Saturday afternoon with a stout middle-aged woman who goes by the name of Nesta, and two others. Ring any bells?”

It was difficult to be sure with the squint, but Joyce appeared to have developed a fascination with Policewoman Tring; that is to say, she was running her eyes up and down someone or something with a resentful air.

“Are you a policewoman?” she asked, ignoring Cooper.

“Yes,” said Tring.

“What’s that like then?”

“It’s jolly interesting.”

Cooper cleared his throat.

“Saturday afternoon…” he prompted.

Tring handed her the artist’s impression of Dennis that Evelyn Wilkes had supplied.

“Yeah,” said Joyce, keeping at least one of her eyes on Tring, “he was in here with three women. He comes in quite a bit – I haven’t seen him the past couple of days, though. And I don’t know his name. He’s a flashy type. Keen on himself. Looks like a spiv.”

Tring touched Cooper lightly on the shoulder, which made him startle. He nodded at her to say whatever it was she wanted to say.

“Can you remember what he was wearing?” she asked. Joyce looked at her as if she were a dog on a bicycle playing the cymbals. “You said he was dressed like a spiv,” Tring persisted. “Can you remember what he was wearing?”

“Can’t say as I paid him much attention,” Joyce said. “Like I said, he isn’t really my type.”

“Well, if you do happen to remember,” Cooper said, picking up the reins of his investigation, “or if he puts in an appearance in the meantime, perhaps you’d be so kind as to let us know.”

Tring handed the waitress a card with the station numbers on it. The girl inspected it with interest.

“That Nesta was in yesterday,” she said. “She was with a soldier.”

“A soldier?”

“He’s Irish. I think it’s disgusting. She’s old enough to be his mother.”

“What does he look like?”

Joyce thought for a moment before giving Cooper a
reasonable
description, which Tring took down. He didn’t sound much like Dennis: very tall, red hair, florid complexion.

“Thank you very much,” Cooper said while Tring took down her name and address. “You’ve been most helpful. We’ll be in touch about you coming down to the station to give a statement.”

“She ain’t doing that in my time,” the proprietor said without looking up from the
Sporting Life
.

“The police station?” The waitress had perked up noticeably at the idea of a visit to the police station, and seeing her
reaction
, Cooper reckoned that the café was in good hands: there was no hope of Joyce being considered for the A4 Branch, not with that squint – no matter how many men the Met were short – but it didn’t hurt the investigation to have her think that she might be in with a chance.

“I can’t believe people like that dreadful man don’t want to help the police,” Tring was saying as they made their way to the Feathers.

“We’re jolly lucky he didn’t throw us out on to the street,” Cooper said.

“I thought you dealt with him very well, sir.”

“Most people will relent if you hang about long enough, just to get rid of you.”

They walked a little further along the baking street. A
newspaper
wrapped itself around his feet. She laughed at his clumsy efforts to detach it.