Authors: Barry Maitland
‘At the top there was a gap between two parts of the building, about six or seven metres wide, with this beam across it, maybe so wide.’ Bob spread the thumb and little finger of his hand apart. ‘Danny marched off across the beam. There was nothing to hold on to. Herbert hesitated, and I could imagine what was going through his mind. The wind was cutting into us and there were flurries of snow in the air. I was right at his shoulder and there was no room to turn. Finally he set off, concentrating on the beam, trying not to look beyond it into the void.
‘Halfway across, Danny suddenly stopped, and turned to face Herbert. “Well, Mr Architect,” he said, “what’s your opinion about that manhole down there?” and he pointed to the ground that seemed miles below our feet. Herbert looked, and just froze. He simply couldn’t move. He was totally paralysed.
‘We had to organize a crane with a big bucket on the end to come up for him. The whole site came to a stop to watch the architect being lowered to the ground in a concrete bucket. It made a terrible mess of his cashmere coat.’
‘I see,’ Kathy said, ‘but would he terrorize some old ladies who were holding things up? Or even bump them off?’
‘No.’ Bob hesitated, shook his head. ‘No, I’m sure he wouldn’t.’
He frowned and stared at his hands.
‘Well, thanks anyway, Bob. One other thing. Did you hear any more about those books you saw at Eleanor’s flat that time—the ones that your friend Judith was so interested in?’
‘Well, yes, I did in a way. A couple of months ago somebody rang me up about them. The call came out of the blue. A man. Said he was a book dealer. He said he had bought these books, and understood I had been interested in them, and was I still? I told him it wasn’t really me who was interested but my friend, and I gave him Judith’s name,
address and phone number at Princeton. He didn’t tell me who he was.’
‘Did you recognize the voice? Could it have been Mr Kowalski?’
‘The owner of the bookshop? No, it certainly wasn’t him. I didn’t recognize the voice at all.’
‘We may need to speak to Judith. You’d better give me her address too.’
‘Sure, but she’s here, you know.’
‘Here?’
‘Yes, in London. At least she was a couple of days ago. I got this message from her on my answering machine wanting me to contact her. She was staying at a hotel in Knightsbridge. I rang back and she wasn’t there, so I left a message. Then when she didn’t get back to me I tried again later that evening. They said she still hadn’t got back and I asked them to give her the message to ring me whatever time she got in. She never did, and after that I didn’t try again. To tell you the truth I felt I’d done enough running around for her the last time she was over here.’
‘Which evening was it you rang the hotel?’
‘Night before last. Tuesday.’
‘Have you got the number? I’d like to try it now, please.’
‘Sure.’ Bob found it for her and brought a phone over from a side table.
The hotel receptionist was helpful. ‘She checked out this afternoon, madam.’
‘Oh, I’d been hoping to catch her this evening.’
There was a pause at the other end while the woman looked something up. ‘Yes, she had booked to stay another couple of days, but apparently she had to return to the United States earlier than expected.’
‘She went to the airport?’
‘I believe so, madam.’
Kathy rapidly dialled the airport police at Heathrow and identified herself. Judith Naismith had booked on the
7.10 p.m. British Airways flight to New York, boarding in twenty minutes. She had already checked in and passed through to the departure lounge.
‘Hold her there, will you? I’ll get back to you within ten minutes.’
She dialled again, this time the Yard, and spoke to Brock.
‘Right, Kathy,’ Brock said after she’d explained, ‘tell them to pull her off the flight and hold her till we get there. I’ll pick you up where you are as soon as I can.’
Brock peered through the glass panel in the door of the detention room. Beneath a bright fluorescent light a uniformed policeman sat impassively at a bare table with arms folded. Opposite him stood Judith Naismith. She leant over the table, one hand propping herself up, the other resting on her hip. Although only a murmur could be heard through the door, she was clearly haranguing him. She had straight, shoulder-length ash-blonde hair, and was of similar build to Kathy, slim and of medium height, but her body was more angular, her gestures more explosive. When they went inside, Brock noticed her sharp and humourless eyes, and decided that Dr Naismith was going to be a formidable customer.
He introduced Kathy and himself.
‘What exactly is the problem here?’ she demanded, folding her arms. ‘You do realize I’ve missed my flight?’
‘I’m sorry about that, but we’re investigating the murders of two women which have occurred recently in central London, and we believe you may be able to help us with our inquiries. We only just learned of your whereabouts, and under the circumstances it seemed the only course open to us.’
He gave her a conciliatory smile and began to take off his coat. Her face had given no flicker of response to the
mention of murders. Brock indicated to the uniformed man that he could go, and took his place at the table. Kathy waited by the door.
‘Please.’ Brock indicated the chair opposite him. ‘Sit down, Dr Naismith, and we can sort this out.’
She stared at him for a moment without moving and then turned to Kathy. ‘I hope you people are within your rights.’ She looked at Kathy slowly from head to foot, then back to her face again. Her stare was rude, intended to intimidate. Kathy returned it calmly, not showing the embarrassment which, to her annoyance, she began to feel.
Brock reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out his notebook and Judith Naismith’s passport. ‘Come and sit down, Dr Naismith,’ he repeated absently, flicking through the pages of the passport. She still made no move, and he began to write in his notebook. Finally she sat down abruptly in the chair, half turned away from Brock with one arm hooked on the chair back, her legs crossed, in an attitude which suggested great self-control in the face of outrageous provocation.
‘Why are you leaving now, Dr Naismith? I understand you were planning to stay longer.’
She slowly turned her head towards him. ‘What business, exactly, is that of yours?’ She enunciated the words slowly, as if to someone with limited understanding.
Brock stared at her for a moment.
‘We’d like you to tell us about all of your recent contacts with Miss Eleanor Harper, of 22 Jerusalem Lane, WC2. Let’s begin with the last time you actually saw her.’
There was silence for a moment before she said, with the same exaggerated patience, ‘Am I under arrest?’
‘No, you’re not, Dr . . .’
‘Am I then free to go?’
‘Are you saying that you refuse to co-operate with us?’
‘Am I free to go?’
Brock sighed, closed up her passport and placed it back
in his inside jacket pocket. ‘Where will you be staying in London?’
‘I’d like my passport, please.’
‘I’m afraid that’s impossible. You won’t be able to leave the country until you’ve answered my questions.’ She looked at him with surprise as he got to his feet and pulled on his coat. ‘If I were you, I’d get myself a good solicitor, Dr Naismith,’ he said, and headed for the door.
‘That’s exactly what I’m going to do!’ she called after him, but they were gone before she finished the sentence.
On the way back into central London, Brock, irritated, searched through an address book in his pocket and then made a transatlantic call. The voice at the other end sounded clearer than on a local number.
‘Good to hear you, David. Are you coming over?’
‘Not this time, Nigel. I need a bit of information quickly, and I thought you might possibly be able to help. It’s about an academic at Princeton.’
‘If I can. What discipline?’
‘Economic history.’
‘Oh yes? We have a Search Committee in place at the moment for a senior position in that department here. I could say I’m inquiring for them.’
‘Yes, that sounds good. I just want to get some background on the woman. She’s a British subject, been over there for thirteen or fourteen years, since doing a doctorate at Cambridge. Name, Judith Naismith.’ He spelled it, and, after some perfunctory small talk about the weather and each other’s health, rang off.
‘FBI?’ Kathy asked.
Brock shook his head. ‘No. Friend from the army. Went over there twenty years ago. Professor in the Midwest now.’ He lapsed into silence and said nothing more on the journey back.
During the night, while Brock and Gurney continued their questioning of Terry Winter, unseasonable freezing winds from the north and east displaced the damp, mild westerlies of the previous days, and a bitter change set in. Waking early on the morning of Friday 3 April, the third day of the investigation into Eleanor Harper’s death, Kathy shuddered to see that the view from her window of the distant street lights was obliterated by swirling snow. She breakfasted hurriedly on tea and toast, hauled on her long coat, scarf, gloves and woollen hat, and made for the lift.
There was just one policewoman in the office at Jerusalem Lane, minding the phones. She said that Winter had been charged, but she didn’t know what with. Copies of statements were on their way over from the Yard, as well as a report from the Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Laboratory at Lambeth Road over the river, on the hammer found in the building site, but neither had yet arrived.
Impatient and edgy, Kathy pulled her outer layers back on and stepped out into the cold dawn of Jerusalem Lane once more. Flurries of snow were gusting through the high chain-link fence which topped the plywood panels of the construction site. Here and there it collected in small drifts. She walked rapidly back up to the north end, head down, and ran across Welbeck Street to the news vendor on the corner. The man had moved his plastic tarpaulin round to the east side of his stall, and Kathy huddled in its shelter. As
she searched in her bag for money to pay for the early-morning editions, a red Mercedes sports car pulled over to the kerb on the other side of the street. The interior lit up for a moment as the passenger opened his door, and Kathy saw the driver, a woman, lean over and give him a kiss. He was a big man, who took a moment to haul himself out of the low car, as if his shoulder were giving him trouble. Just before he pulled the collar of his coat up and turned to hurry down Jerusalem Lane, Kathy recognized Brock’s bearded face.
The laboratory report arrived shortly after Kathy returned to the incident centre. It confirmed that the hammer was the one used to strike Eleanor’s forehead in the moments immediately after her death. It was a ballhammer, with a rounded head, as used by plumbers. Its shape and size were consistent with the indentations in Eleanor’s skull, and scratches on its surface matched impressions found on the plastic bag.
Kathy and another officer returned to Winter’s house in Chislehurst to speak to his wife, Caroline. She seemed to find their questions faintly amusing, as if they had no bearing on her own life. She was unable to recall ever having seen the hammer before. Her husband, she said, was not a great handyman.
‘Scissors and a comb are about the only tools he’s any good with,’ she informed the young detective constable with a look that made him blush. ‘The last time hammers were mentioned in this house was when one of the builders putting in the new kitchen complained he’d lost one. I can’t remember which, though. One of the older men. I didn’t pay much attention.’
It was mid-morning by the time Kathy returned to Jerusalem Lane. Bren Gurney was sitting over a mug of tea in the back room, looking exhausted. He told her that
Winter’s attempts to account for his movements had been a farce. It had been impossible to confirm his whereabouts for any of the incidents that had occurred at the sisters’ house, and in the case of the business with the mask, a neighbour had actually seen him leave his Peckham flat an hour before it occurred, although he claimed he had remained at home all night. Peg couldn’t be certain that the mask was the one used to frighten Eleanor, since only her sister had seen it, but confirmed that it was just as she had described it.
Despite all this, Winter had refused to admit to anything. Gurney seethed with frustration, and not only with Winter. He was convinced the man was guilty. He had the clearest motive, weak or non-existent alibis, and he was telling lies, at first with a certain amount of assurance, like someone unused to having his lies disbelieved, and then increasingly, as the night wore on, out of sheer desperation. Yet Brock had seemed oddly reluctant to act, and it was only towards 4 in the morning that he had finally agreed that Winter should be charged with a number of offences relating to the incidents at 22 Jerusalem Lane between November and March. These included threatening behaviour and causing malicious damage, but not yet murder.
Gurney sighed and ran a hand across his chin. ‘I’d better get myself a shave.’
‘Haven’t you had any sleep?’ Kathy asked him.
He shook his head. ‘I hung around to process the charges, then to wait for Winter’s solicitor. Brock got an hour or two shut-eye, I guess.’
‘Did he go home?’
‘Doubt it. He lives down by Dulwich. Probably put his head down at the Yard.’
‘Does he have a sister?’
‘Yes. Out in Buckinghamshire somewhere, I think. Why?’ He looked curiously at Kathy.
‘Oh, when I was buying the papers this morning I saw him arrive. A woman brought him, in a red Merc sports.’
A little smile creased Gurney’s tired eyes. ‘Don’t suppose you got the number?’
Kathy reached across and wrote on the pad in front of him. Gurney tore off the sheet and left the office. Half an hour later he strolled back in again, washed, shaved and considerably more cheerful. Without a word he placed a note in front of Kathy. On it was written the name Mrs Suzanne Chambers, a telephone number and an address in Belgravia, barely two hundred yards from Scotland Yard.