04 - Carnival of Criminals (12 page)

Tommy didn’t like any of those questions, nor the answers
they suggested. But he had started this search and now it had to be ended. He
would write to Hans Friger and hear what he had to say. If there was any
chance, no matter how small, that Jurgen was still alive then Friger was his
best chance of finding it. If not, Tommy wasn’t sure what else he could do.

He listened to the rain hitting the front door and a
shiver went down his spine.

Clara did not often bemoan the state of marriage (though
in her experience it resulted in a few more corpses then was perhaps
comfortable), however it did annoy her immensely that when a woman got married
she changed her name, thus rendering her almost impossible to find. Unless you
knew who she had married, of course. Clara did not know who Penny Palmer
married, so it was with a touch of despondency that she went to the local
newspaper office and spent most of the afternoon trawling through the
announcements in additions of the
Brighton Gazette
from 1907 and 1908.
It was a long search, but it produced results. On 24 December 1908 Miss Penny
Palmer married Gregory Patterson, a bookseller. A grainy photograph showed
husband and bride in the church doorway. Both were smiling at someone behind
the photographer’s shoulder. Penny looked older than the twenty years the
newspaper claimed she was, but then Gregory looked younger than the thirty-nine
he was listed as being. Clara studied the picture a little longer, trying to
get inspiration about the character of Penny Palmer through printed black lines
of ink on grey paper. She gave up the exercise as futile after a few moments.

The next stop, now this elusive information had been
discovered, was the post office where Clara could see a current copy of the
town directory. She turned to the list of Ps in the trade section (as Gregory
was listed as selling books, so logically owned a shop) and gave herself a
surprise. For Gregory Patterson was the proprietor of
Brighton Books
,
the very shop Tommy was always visiting to pick up pamphlets on American
detectives and criminal investigation. Clara closed the directory with a
sharper thud than she meant and the postmistress glowered at her over her
spectacles. Clara gave a smile then hastened back into the street.

It looked close to rain again as she found her way to the
high street, negotiating afternoon shoppers and children currently released
from their schooling for the holidays. Several people were talking about the
fair; Clara caught snippets of conversation, including the tail end of a
sentence declaring the police had had to be called again after some trouble
arose. Making a mental note to talk to Inspector Park-Coombs next time she had
the chance, Clara spotted
Brighton Books
and darted in the doorway. She
collided with a rotund grandmother carrying an armful of books, while her small
grandchild squalled at her side that they weren’t the books
he
wanted.
Several books fell to the floor and Clara earned yet another reproving look. It
really was not her day.

Safely in the shop Clara took a moment to grasp her
bearings. She couldn’t recall the last time she had entered this place; though
she liked to read she rarely had the time and when she did she could always
find something in her father’s library to work through. It was obvious other
people did not have the same problem, for there were several customers
scattered about the towering bookcases that reached up to the ceiling, browsing
in that respectfully quiet manner only found in places where the printed word
was sold (excluding newspapers, of course!).

Clara made her way to the counter in the centre of the
shop, behind which a bald gentleman with half-moon glasses smiled at her. Mr
Patterson had not aged so well in the last 12 years, time had finally caught up
with him and his face looked tired. His dark hair only remained in thin wisps
behind his ears and in the moustache over his upper lip. He had thin, artistic
hands, with long fingers that were always on the move. He was lean and slightly
hunched, possibly because he was a tall man and had spent all his life trying
to pretend he wasn’t. He had a nice smile though and spoke very gently, despite
a bad fitting denture giving him a lisp. This was the man who had won Penny
Palmer’s heart? It somehow beggared belief that such a quiet soul had taken a
shine to a woman that the rest of Brighton considered a thieving vixen with
little in the way of morals. Still, it took all sorts, Clara supposed.

“Mr Gregory Patterson?”

“Indeed, my dear. How can I help you?”

“Actually I was looking for your wife Penny. Is she in?”

Mr Patterson’s smile tightened.

“My dear, you are five years too late. I’m a widower.”

Clara had one of those moments when she wished a huge
shaft would open beneath her and swallow her up.

“I’m sorry, no one told me that.” Clara bit at her lip,
wondering what else she could say.

“May I ask why you wished to see her?” Gregory Patterson
asked in the same manner he might use when enquiring about a book a person
desired.

“It was not anything important, not now. It was about
someone she knew fifteen years ago.”

Patterson tilted his head on one side. A quizzical look
crossed his face.

“I don’t suppose that would be Mervin Grimes, would it?”

Clara managed to hide her surprise.

“Actually, yes. I didn’t realise you were aware of him.
His body has finally been found after all these years and I am trying, on
behalf of the family, to discover what happened back in 1905. I thought Mrs
Patterson might be able to help.”

“I’m sure she would have liked to, had she been able.”
Patterson looked at his watch, “It’s very close to closing time. Might I ask
you to bear with me while I shut up the shop and then we can chat?”

“If you wouldn’t mind?”

“Not at all, please go through the brown door at the back
of the shop marked private where you will find a sitting room. I shall join you
in just a few moments.”

Clara followed his instructions and found herself in a
rather old-fashioned parlour. Crocheted blankets were draped over the backs of old
leather armchairs and the mantelpiece was adored with a velvet cloth. She
peered into a glass dome containing dried flowers and a taxidermy frog, decided
it was a bit too grim and turned instead to the narrow window which looked out
into a side alley. The room was naturally dark, but a gas fitting in the middle
of the ceiling fed into a three-prong brass light, with opaque domed glass
shades. Gas light casts a unique sort of light, one filled with flickering
shadows. It all made Clara feel rather oppressed. Had Penny once sat in this
room and contemplated the gas light? Had she crocheted those blankets in her
spare time? Or stared at the frog in his glass dome with the same distaste as
Clara?

She was startled when Patterson opened the door.

“Would you mind if I just change into my slippers? My
feet get so swollen in my work shoes.” He said, closing the door behind him.

“Of course not.”

“Thank you, may I offer you tea?”

“There is no need to bother on my account.”

“Thank you.” Patterson lowered himself into one of the
armchairs with a groan and slowly worked off each of his shoes, exchanging them
for red tartan slippers, “Growing old is an unremarkable business, but it is
very depressing. This shop, for one thing, seems to become more wearisome each
year that slips by. Never a day off, except Sundays and Christmas, never a
holiday. I daren’t be ill, who would pay the rent? And at the end of the day
what do I have but an empty house and a cold hearth.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I doubt I am alone, Mrs..?”

“Miss Fitzgerald. I could come back at a better time if
now is inconvenient.”

Patterson lightly smiled.

“There is no better time. You reach a stage in your life
when you stop expecting to wake up in the morning with nothing aching. Instead
you are grateful when it’s only the knee that aches, or only the back that
twinges. Still, at least I see people every day. Some folks don’t have even
that.”

“My brother is very fond of your shop.” Clara decided it
was time to move the conversation off such depressing topics as aging and
ill-health.

“Is he now? What books does he prefer?”

“He is very fond of true crime, I do believe he has
ordered a number of detective books from you. I recall one in particular about
the experiences of an American private investigator.”

“Ah, yes, I know your brother! He certainly has diverse
interests. Did the volume on poisons suit him? It was a challenge to find.”

“He found it very useful.” Clara said, wondering why all
her conversations were so strange, “I wish I had more time to read myself.”

“As amusing as it sounds for a man who works in a
bookshop, so do I!” Patterson laughed, “I’m surrounded by the written word all
day long, yet my own literary tastes are sadly neglected. Many evenings I sit
here and wish I had the money to retire.”

Somehow the topic had come round on itself, so Clara once
again tried to push it on.

“Did Penny like books?”

“Penny was not the reading sort. She was helpful in the
shop, but I could not enthuse her with literature. A shame really, but I
suspected as much when I married her.”

“How did you come to meet?”

“Penny was a typist, I employed her. At the time I was
attempting to put together a catalogue of this shop. I bought it fully stocked
from an elderly gentleman who was moving to live with his daughter in Devon. He
had never kept a written inventory and I found myself with 1,500 books and not
a clue as to what any of them were. The process of cataloguing is tedious at
the best of times, but especially when you don’t know what you are doing. I
contacted a secretarial agency and explained my problem. They sent me Penny.”

“She was good at cataloguing?”

“She had the mind for it. She arranged things
alphabetically by author and also by subject. She gave each entry a description
and even referenced other relevant works. There was a non-fiction and a fiction
catalogue. My shop has never been so organised since. I employed her for a week
and on the last day I asked her to dinner. After a month I asked her to marry
me. I didn’t fool myself to think she loved me. But she was sad and lonely,
just like me, and it seemed better to be sad and lonely together.”

Patterson’s eyes crinkled as his mind flicked back
through the years, his smile became winsome as he drifted into nostalgia. A
tear formed at the corner of his eye.

“Turns out Penny was more lonely and sad than I
realised.”

“What happened?” Clara asked, sensing she was on delicate
territory.

The old bookman blinked back his tears and found a
handkerchief in his pocket to clean his glasses. It seemed a long time before
he answered.

“Penny gassed herself. Put her head in the oven. I was
away in London at a book fair. I’ve never forgiven myself for not being here
with her.”

“People do things sometimes, that we…”

“Please, no platitudes Miss Fitzgerald, I have heard them
all. Penny waited for me to be gone, I appreciate that, it does not change the
fact that if I had been here it wouldn’t of happened.”

“Maybe she would have jumped off a bridge instead?”

Patterson gave a little start.

“That wasn’t a platitude.” Clara said gently.

“It certainly wasn’t.”

“Other than being unhappy, was there any reason for her
actions?”

“You mean, did she have a guilty conscience over
something?” Gregory Patterson shook his head, “Nothing like that. Penny was
always dwelling in the past, but only because she believed she had been happier
then.”

“When Mervin Grimes was alive?”

“When she was young and everything seemed full of
promise. And, yes, I suppose Mervin Grimes was a part of that.” Patterson’s
tone had grown harder, less sorrowful, “That young man had filled poor Penny’s
head with ideas of luxury and wealth beyond her dreams. And she believed every
word. How can you go from that to working in a book shop? I used to try and
convince her that Mervin had been a big talker, nothing more, but she didn’t
take to that idea. She was certain the night he disappeared he had been coming
to get her so they could marry.”

“Why did she think that?”

“Because it was better than imagining he had disappeared
with all the money he won that night and left her behind.”

“So she told you about the race fixing?”

Patterson shrugged.

“We had no secrets and she was not directly involved. She
told me a lot of things.”

“All about Mervin’s schemes?”

“Yes.”

“What about his enemies?”

Patterson cocked his head, like he had in the shop. Clara
took it as a signal he was thinking.

“I don’t recall her mentioning any names. Naturally there
was all that trouble with the London gangsters. Penny told me how scared she
was at the time. She even went to Mervin’s mum, asking if she knew where he
was. His mum said he had gone off to Newcastle, of all places, and that was
that.”

“Did Penny believe her?”

“She didn’t see eye-to-eye with that woman. No, I don’t
think she did.”

“Do you recall her ever mentioning anything about a key?”

“No.”

Clara felt the threads she had neatly gathered together,
once again falling into a jumbled mess.

“Is there anything else, anything at all, you recall her
saying about Mervin Grimes?”

Patterson mused on this, he stretched out one sore foot.

“She liked to go to the old church in the fields at Hove,
is it St Andrews? Anyway, she liked it there because her and Mervin used to sit
in the graveyard. Back then the door to the crypt was not kept locked and
Mervin had a fascination for sneaking in and looking at all the long-dead
bodies. Penny said it was creepy, but Mervin liked the dead. They told no
tales, as the saying goes. Penny never joined him, but afterwards… well, she
was always in that graveyard and church.”

Clara considered the irony of this story. Here was Mervin
fascinated by corpses residing in a crypt, finally ending up in a similar
situation and fascinating crowds across the country. Fate has a sense of
humour, it seemed.