The Marx Sisters (17 page)

‘Judith explained that it was very difficult for her, just sitting there, to tell what it might be. She said she’d really have to take them away and show them to someone else.

‘“Oh well, that’s all right, dear, I trust you,” Mrs Winterbottom said. “Only, you might like to show good faith, like, and leave a small deposit.”

‘Judith jumped at the offer, then realized that she was only carrying francs and dollars. I had two ten-pound notes in my wallet, and she reached over and pulled both out and gave them to Mrs Winterbottom.

‘“Thank you, dear,” she said. “I suppose they must be worth at least that? So if there were a few hundred sheets, they’d be worth a few thousand quid?”

‘Judith’s jaw dropped. “There’s a few hundred?”

‘“Oh, I couldn’t say for sure, dear. Not till I look. But I was saying just supposing.”

‘“Well, I don’t know. Perhaps.”

‘“Course if they was valuable,” the old bird went on innocently, “I mean part of our heritage, like, perhaps it would be wrong to sell them to an
American
university. Maybe I should see if a British university would like to buy them.”

‘To give her credit, Judith didn’t show the panic she must have felt. She gave the old dear a warm smile and said, oh no, it was a specialized field, and Judith was about the only person working in it. She didn’t think there’d be any British university interested in that sort of thing. There were so many old papers in people’s attics, after all. It was a matter of being lucky enough to find a researcher interested in the specific ones. She said it so smoothly and casually. It was interesting to watch someone that you knew doing that, lying through their teeth.

‘Mrs Winterbottom insisted that we drink a glass of port with her to toast our business partnership, as she called it, and then we left. Judith put the sheets between two layers of cardboard which she clutched tightly on her lap all the way back to the airport. She didn’t want to talk. She just stared out of the car window, eyes shining.

‘We didn’t hear anything for a while, then Mrs Winterbottom contacted me again, making the appointment for
last Sunday. Judith flew over especially from the States for the meeting, arriving at Heathrow that Sunday morning. She was bubbling with anticipation. The handwriting on the two pages was definitely Marx’s, and the text was an excerpt from the draft of an essay on the theory of socialism, to which she hadn’t been able to find any reference in any of the text books. In my car as we drove from the airport, and all the time we waited for the meeting, she couldn’t stop talking about it. She went on and on about how she hadn’t been able to sleep for thinking about the hundreds of pages that might be lying in some store-box somewhere.’

Bob Jones smiled at the recollection, and shifted his empty glass around on the table top.

‘I thought she looked just like the agitated student she’d never been at university. I much preferred her this way, excited, enthusiastic . . . vulnerable, I suppose, although I’d have liked it better if she could have transferred some of that excitement in my direction. Oh well.’ He shrugged ruefully.

‘Anyway, you can understand why we were so disappointed when we couldn’t get to see Mrs Winterbottom that afternoon. After we looked around at number 22, we decided to go and have a cup of tea somewhere and come back in half an hour, when she might have woken up. Actually we phoned then, but there was no reply. We tried again after another half-hour, and when there was still no reply, we walked back to Jerusalem Lane. That’s when we saw the ambulance there, and somebody in the street said that Mrs Winterbottom had been taken seriously ill. Judith was devastated, but she had to catch the evening flight back to New York and couldn’t wait.’

Jones sat back in his chair and took a deep breath. His chin sank on his chest and he seemed suddenly drained, as if completing his account had exhausted him. Kathy looked at him, wondering. She glanced at Brock, who gave no indication of wanting to pursue the interview.

‘Did you talk to Mrs Winterbottom about the redevelopment of Jerusalem Lane?’ she asked.

Jones shook his head.

‘Oh, come on. You knew what was going on in the background, the plans that were being prepared. Surely you must have been curious about how she stood?’

Jones sighed and avoided meeting her eyes. ‘To be perfectly honest, I was embarrassed. I would have liked to know if she and the other residents realized what was going on, but I didn’t want to have to answer her questions if she thought I maybe knew things that she didn’t. Also, I felt I had an obligation to Slade to keep quiet. And . . . I felt guilty, I suppose. The first time we met her I did mention that I’d noticed that the bookshop seemed to have closed down. She said the Kowalskis were leaving the neighbourhood, and I asked her if she had any plans like that. It was as far as I felt I could go. She said she didn’t.’

‘What about the books and manuscript? Have you got an idea of their total value? Did Judith mention anything?’

‘No, no.’ He shook his head wearily. ‘Those figures I gave you were all that she said to me. She didn’t talk about money at all when we met last Sunday, and of course we had no idea how much stuff Mrs Winterbottom was going to come up with.’

Kathy said nothing for a moment, then quietly, ‘What were your first thoughts when you read that Mrs Winterbottom might have been murdered?’

Jones looked up at her, and she thought she saw anguish in his eyes. ‘I . . . I don’t know. I suppose I wondered if it could have had anything to do with what Judith was interested in, but it seemed so unlikely. I mean she may not be the only scholar in the world interested in Marxist sources, but it’s a bit esoteric as a motive for murder, isn’t it? Then I thought . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘I thought . . . about the redevelopment project. I thought
about that big office in Docklands with all those blokes drawing away like mad. I thought about the cost of servicing the site purchase-funding and the cost of delays . . . When I asked Mrs Winterbottom about moving, she said she’d recently had an offer to sell, but she said she never would. She said they’d have to carry her out in a box.’

They returned to the car. There had been a short break in the rain, but water still coursed along the gutters.

‘Can you drop me off at the Yard?’ Brock asked. ‘I have some things to catch up on.’ He seemed preoccupied.

‘Of course.’

They drove in silence for a while. Then Brock said, ‘The lawyers would have a great time with him in the witness box. It’d take a week to get through his opening statement.’

‘He did go on a bit,’ Kathy said, glad to talk about it. ‘I didn’t really mind, though. I found the background about Slade quite interesting.’

‘Hmm.’ Brock stared out of the side window, arms folded. ‘If it’s relevant. You liked him.’ It was a statement.

‘Oh . . .’ Kathy hesitated. ‘Well, yes, I suppose I did. I liked the way he was honest about his failures. He was almost painfully open about them, I thought—about trying to seduce Judith Naismith, and the fiasco with his design for the Lane. And I liked his enthusiasm, the way he really believed in what he was doing.’ She glanced over at Brock. ‘You don’t agree?’

‘I kept thinking,’ Brock said after a long pause, ‘that he had an awful lot of overheads to support on one loft conversion in Maida Vale.’

Kathy stared up at the reflection of herself in the mirrored ceiling. Against the crumpled satin sheets her body and that of Martin beside her looked as if they had been pinned untidily into some giant specimen case.

‘This place is so gross,’ she said. ‘Why do all your friends have such bad taste? They think “expensive” means “smart”.’

Martin stirred and traced a finger down her side. ‘Very convenient, though. Two minutes from the office. OK?’ he murmured.

‘Mmm. Always.’ Actually it hadn’t been so good. Martin was tense and hurried.

‘Lot on?’ she asked.

‘Oh, yes. Difficult case in court later on this afternoon. You?’

‘Always variety, you know. Yesterday we went to the seaside in the morning, a funeral in the afternoon, and heard a long shaggy dog story from an architect in the evening.’

‘What was he like?’

‘Who?’

‘The architect.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Quite sweet, I suppose. Except we don’t know how much to believe.’

‘Never mind. Not long before we get away from all this.’

‘I dream about it. Seven wonderful days and nights with you, without an alarm clock or an appointment in court.’

The ostensible purpose of the trip to Grenada was Martin’s attendance at an international conference of criminal lawyers, but he would duck out after the first day. He had booked them into a hotel so luxurious that each suite had its own swimming pool.

‘How’s it going with Brock?’

‘Good. He was quite talkative yesterday. Still don’t know much about him really, except that he’s very gloomy about marriage—and just about any other kind of relationship too, as far as I can gather. “Doomed” was his word, I think.’

Martin laughed. ‘What about his big case? Did he say any more about that?’

‘Upper North? Yes, he said a bit.’ She hesitated.

‘Well?’

‘I don’t think I can tell you.’

‘What?’

‘What he told me. It was in confidence.’

‘He told you not to tell anyone?’

‘No. But I don’t think he expected me to. You’re annoyed?’

Martin had that sulky set to his lower lip which she had once thought appealing, until she had seen it on a photograph of him as a little boy standing next to his big brother who was holding a cricket bat.

‘I just wonder sometimes what kind of relationship you can have with someone you don’t trust, that’s all.’

‘That’s not fair, Martin. You don’t tell me everything about your work.’

‘Oh yes I do.’ His mood brightened. ‘I told you all about the woman with the fish.’

Kathy laughed. ‘Yes.’

‘And the man who tried to steal the three-piece suite from Harrods.’

‘Yes, yes.’ He was tickling the soles of her feet.

‘Well then, you can tell me all about the fiendish plot to recapture Upper North!’

‘No, Martin. Brock–’

But Martin had turned abruptly and pushed himself off the bed, the joke over. ‘Bugger Brock,’ he snapped, and strode out to the bathroom.

Kathy rolled over and swore quietly into the pillow.

She met Brock at the south end of Jerusalem Lane, as arranged.

He nodded as she got into the car. ‘Productive morning?’

‘A bit. Commercial Section are doing checks on Derek Slade and known past associates. Also Herbert Lowell and Bob Jones. Sylvia Pemberton can’t be more specific about when she saw Adam Kowalski, but I’ve arranged for people to check with the book dealer in Notting Hill and the van rental place in Camden Town about the timing of the Kowalskis’ movements that afternoon.’

‘Yes, good. Thought any more about Jones’s story?’

‘I have been thinking about it, yes, sir. There are things about it that bother me now. He was very shaken up when we first told him why we were there, but his story didn’t give much grounds for that, if it was true. Bits of it just don’t make sense, and other bits sound like fantasy.’

‘Which bits don’t make sense?’

‘Judith Naismith wouldn’t fly specially here from New York to see Meredith Winterbottom, desperate to see what she had to offer, and then just leave her and have a cup of coffee while the old lady has an afternoon nap. They would have tried to wake her up. If they had phoned and got no reply, they’d have shot straight back to make sure she hadn’t woken up and gone out.’

‘Agreed, although he did know about the ambulance, so he was surely there after the event as well as before. What about the fantasy?’

‘This amazing discovery—the Marx diaries or whatever they are. In the cold light of day the whole thing sounds so implausible. How convenient that we can’t talk to Judith Naismith—if she even exists. Sam spoke only about a man in a bow tie, and the same with Adam Kowalski. Neither mentioned a woman. If she does exist, well, some of what he said may be true, but not all of it. Perhaps he did fax her the letter, and then met her in London that first time and found out the letter might be worth something. Then he might have decided to work her into the story of his subsequent visit to Meredith in order to throw suspicion on Judith, just as he threw suspicion on Slade.’

‘What was he up to, then?’

‘If he is up to something,’ Kathy said reluctantly, ‘it surely has to be something to do with the redevelopment project. It has to be. He is, or was, the architect, after all. How extraordinary that he should be hanging around the last building in the street that Slade hasn’t been able to buy. Perhaps he’s trying to embarrass Slade. He certainly did a fair job—“have to carry her out in a box”!’ Kathy snorted. ‘I think we took him by surprise when we told him he’d been seen going into Meredith’s house, and he came up with a half-thought-out story to explain his presence there without mentioning the real reason.’

‘Which was?’

‘I don’t know. He could have been advising her how to fight Slade through the planning process. Or trying to persuade her not to sell out, or perhaps to sell to
him
. I don’t know.’

‘Well, you seem to have thought it through’—he gave a little smile—‘very objectively. So what do we do?’

‘After we’ve finished here, we should see Jones again. At least he should show us the letter he supposedly bought at Kowalski’s. Remember, Kowalski couldn’t even recall that it was a letter he sold him.’

They climbed the stairs to the second floor of number 22, passing on the way the silent landing on the first floor. Kathy’s eyes were drawn to the locked door along the shadowy passage as if its panels had somehow acquired a residue of the personality whose private place had lain behind it, its paintwork now standing in for her face to the world.

The sisters were in Peg’s flat. Through the living-room window the other side of Jerusalem Lane could be seen bathed in the afternoon sun. The room was less severe than Eleanor’s, with chintz patterned curtains and armchair covers, and a patterned pink china tea service set out on the chest of drawers opposite the gas fire. This cosy domestic scene was presided over by a dramatically colourful portrait of Lenin hanging above the Wedgwood. It was painted in a social realist style, with the great leader gazing off towards a splendid future somewhere beyond the embroidered tea cosy.