A Woman Unknown (20 page)

‘Not yet, but Aunt, I’d be grateful if you might find out the tiniest little thing for me.’

A pause. ‘What is it, dear?’

I gave her the name of the Lincoln’s Inn chambers Mr Duffield had written down for me. ‘Might the chamber’s clerk be prevailed upon to recommend a reliable legal person in my neck of the woods, someone a man might consult if he required matrimonial advice?’

‘What sort of advice?’

Her thoughts would fly to property rather than separation. I needed to be more precise. ‘Advice regarding an irrevocable, insoluble, difficulty. One that involves a dissolution.’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Thank you, Aunt.’

‘How is your mother?’

Aunt Berta’s younger sister, Virginia Hood, known as Ginny, adopted me at birth. ‘Mother is very well, thank you.’

‘And how is Philippa bearing up? You have seen her?’

‘It’s hard to say. Fortunately she has an excellent secretary, and Harold is with her.’

‘Good. Is there a date for the funeral?’

Early the next morning, I stood in the hall with the telephone receiver in one hand and my hairbrush in the other.

‘Kate, good morning. Did I wake you?’

‘Hello, Marcus. No. I’ve been up for ages.’

‘Can you spare the time to call in at the hotel and have a word?’

‘This word I’m to have. Is it with you, or with Sergeant Wilson?’

‘With me.’

‘Only I hear that Sergeant Wilson is very good at interviewing females.’

The non-pompous Marcus would have made light of my remark, but he said, ‘Yes he does have a good approach.’

‘How nice for him. Well, I’ll be there soon. I was coming to town anyway.’

‘Oh and Kate.’

‘Yes?’

‘I believe you have a photograph I would like to see, of a woman who may have stayed at the hotel.’

‘I’ll see if I can lay my hands on it.’

‘Do try.’

I hung up the receiver. That man could be so exasperating. Now he wanted the wedding photograph of Fitzpatrick and Deirdre. Well perhaps his explorations into the machinations of Philippa’s family and Kirkley Bank skulduggery had led him up a blind alley.

Of course when I saw him, in the busy room on the third floor of the hotel, the pomposity had vanished. Perhaps it was his protective coating since I had turned him down. He was his usual polite self and I could not help liking him again, just a little.

‘Kate! Thanks for coming in.’

‘Never one to ignore a summons from the constabulary, Marcus.’

‘You have the photograph?’

I took it from my satchel. ‘It’s six years old. Mr and Mrs Cyril Fitzpatrick. Deirdre. It’s possible I’ll have a more up-to-date one later today.’

‘That would be good.’ He looked at the likeness. ‘Do you have any idea where she might have got to?’

‘No. But I am looking for her, on behalf of her husband. He came to see me with his brother-in-law, Mr Hartigan.’

He frowned. ‘She has been reported missing to the police?’

‘On Sunday.’

‘You will let me know if you find her first.’

‘Marcus, it is Mr Sykes you have as your special constable, not I. But you know how willing I am to cooperate.’

‘I’ve talked to Hartigan. He sticks to the story that he
did not meet his sister until Saturday.’ He paused, waiting for me to comment. I did not. Marcus continued, ‘Is there anything else you can tell me about Mrs Fitzpatrick that might help?’

Trust him to ask such a thorough question. I could have told him about the shoplifting incident, and chapter and verse on Fitzpatrick’s suspicions, but I did not.

‘She was not at home on Friday night. I believe she was here, in the hotel, and bolted straight after Mildred knocked on the door with the morning tea. She was home putting the kettle on when her husband came down on Saturday morning. Also, she stayed at the Adelphi Hotel on the weekend of 24th August with a man whose wife was petitioning for a divorce.’

Marcus tapped his pencil on the blotter. ‘You’ve done well, to say you are not on the case.’

‘Anything else?’

I had not yet heard from Aunt Berta regarding a solicitor in Leeds who may have made the arrangement for Deirdre to be with Joseph Barnard and, possibly, Everett Runcie.

‘Nothing else just now. Will that be all, Marcus?’

‘Not quite. I had a man out to interview Mr Runcie’s long-term companion yesterday afternoon’

‘His mistress?’

Marcus nodded. ‘I understand you have already spoken to her. Twice.’

‘Marcus, someone had to tell her that Runcie was dead. I knew she would be discreet. She had a right to know.’

‘Then you should have informed me.’

‘I tried, if you remember. You did not return my call.
I’m not blaming you. You were busy, naturally. But I have to make my own judgements.’

There was a brief and heavy pause. We both knew now that the intimacy there had been between us was a thing of the past, gone but not forgotten.

Marcus said, gently, ‘I know. And you’re right. Miss Windham said nothing to the Fotheringhams. Lord Fotheringham was as shocked by the piece in
The Times
as anyone else. But you saw her again yesterday.’

I took the cartridge from the inside pocket of my satchel. ‘This was removed from her arm on the first day of grouse shooting. Her lucky bullet.’

He took it from me and slipped it into a bag. ‘Lord Fotheringham has a good idea who fired the shot. The man is so inept that he was unaware of causing an injury.’

‘Will that be all, Marcus?’

‘Do you have something planned? You said you were coming into town.’

The cheek of the man. He wanted to know would I step on his toes.

‘You know me and my hobbies. I always have something planned.’

We were interrupted by Sergeant Wilson, and I took the opportunity to bid Marcus goodbye and be on my way.

I hurried to the offices of the
Herald
, where I had parked the motor. With a little luck, I would catch Len Diamond before he set off for his assignments and ensure he remembered his promise to show me his photographs of the shoot, and of Deirdre.

George was on the desk, taking possession of an advertisement from an anxious-looking gentleman who
wished to announce soothing pills for sale at a shilling a box. I hung back, waiting patiently.

When the man had gone, George said, ‘Sorry, Mrs Shackleton. No sight nor light of Mr Diamond this morning.’

‘That’s too bad.’

‘But Mr Duffield asked if you would go up.’

‘Thank you.’

I took the lift up to Mr Duffield’s domain, his library with its high windows and gentle light. Mr Duffield nodded a greeting. ‘You’ll have heard that Mr Diamond hasn’t come to work.’

‘Yes. Is he often late?’

‘I’m afraid so, especially recently.’

That was a relief, because I had wondered whether Len Diamond had been and gone, having come in early so as to avoid me.

Mr Duffield offered me a seat.

‘I expect he’ll roll in shortly.’

I did not sit down. ‘He said he would let me have copies of some of his photographs.’

‘I have some on file, if that would help. Do you want to take a look?’

‘Yes please.’

‘They’re not top secret. I don’t see why not.’

Mr Duffield led me to a corner of the room shielded from view by tall stacks of shelving. From a drawer, he took a cardboard document case, tied with red tape, set it on the desk and began to untie it carefully. The case was labelled, “August, 1923, L Diamond.”

Len had been busy. I sifted through the photographs until I came to two of Leeds Bridge, and of Joseph
Barnard on the bridge. There were no photographs of Deirdre.

Mr Duffield was explaining how, within a day or two, the month’s pictures would be filed according to subject. He watched as I picked out the photographs of the first day of grouse shooting. There was the picture that had appeared in the paper: a surprised Caroline Windham, clutching her arm, Everett Runcie beside her.

There were photographs of Philippa with Lord Fotheringham, and Lady Fotheringham, sitting at an outdoor luncheon table between two men I did not recognise.

‘You’re looking for something in particular, aren’t you?’ Mr Duffield asked.

I picked up the photographs of the bridge, and of the singer. ‘I thought there may be another figure on the bridge.’

Mr Duffield looked at the clock. ‘I left a message for Mr Diamond to kindly call up here. Let me go see whether anyone has sighted him. Between you and me, he had better buck his ideas up. He is a good photographer but he puts people’s backs up. A little too intrusive, and not reliable.’

I looked at another photograph of the shooting party, half a dozen guns striding out. Len had caught a sense of purpose and anticipation. The picture was clear and clean.

It was a good ten minutes before Mr Duffield returned, frowning.

‘No sign of him. We have a mole in the cellar who develops the photographs. He does remember one of a couple on the bridge recently.’

So Diamond had chosen what to put on file in the library, and what to retain. Nothing unusual in that, but I wondered what lay behind his selection process.

Mr Duffield sat down. Together we began to gather up the photographs, which had been of no help whatsoever.

Mr Duffield said, ‘I would hate to see Diamond sacked. The editor has brought in a young chap as an assistant. Anyone else would see the writing on the wall.’

‘Do you think Mr Diamond may be ill?’

‘No. I think he may have been drinking. He had several assignments yesterday, one featuring the lord mayor. He did not turn up for any of them.’

‘Has someone telephoned his house?’

‘We do not have a telephone number for him. He lives alone in lodgings, in Harehills. I know because I once walked that way with him on a foggy night and saw him to his door.’ He looked at the clock high on the wall, and then scratched his neck beneath the stiff collar.

‘I have my motor outside, Mr Duffield. Shall we go to Harehills?’

Following Mr Duffield’s directions, I took the route of the tram along Roundhay Road. We made for Bank Side Street and came to a halt by a group of three-storey houses. Mr Duffield walked through a ginnel between the houses. Halfway, he paused, and knocked on a door within the ginnel.

‘I know he lives in the basement because he told me. There’s this entrance and one down the steps at the back.’

We walked to the rear of the house and down the
steps. Once again, Mr Duffield knocked. As he pushed the door, it opened. We stepped inside and he called. ‘Len!’

It was so unlike Mr Duffield, with his formal manners, to call a first name that he took me by surprise. ‘Len! Leonard!’

The room was in a state of disarray, a chair overturned, crockery smashed. Expensive cameras had been damaged, broken and flung about the room. Most overpowering was the stench of photographic chemicals.

On the far side of the room was a door that fitted its frame exceedingly well. Across the top had been pinned a strip of black sheeting. His dark room.

Stepping carefully, and keeping on my gloves, I crossed the room. The door to the dark room opened when I touched it with my toe.

The slight stir of air caused the hanging figure to sway gently, the toe caps of his boots coming within inches of my chest. I put a hand to my mouth and nose, and forced myself to look up at the distorted face of Leonard Diamond. Chemicals had been spilled across the floor. Under their stink came another smell. I was glad of the dimness of the light but even as I averted my gaze in the half light, I could see that this room, like the other, had been ransacked.

‘My God.’ Mr Duffield was behind me, his hands on my shoulders. ‘What has he done?’

I did not know whether Mr Duffield was trying to move me out of the way for my own sake, or to get to the body.

I turned to him. ‘It’s too late. Don’t touch him. Don’t touch anything. We must fetch the police.’