Forests of the Night (8 page)

That's what I saw, but I couldn't believe my eyes. I just couldn't believe that it was real. It must be some awful mirage or something. I sat on the edge of the bed gazing down at her for what seemed ages. I suppose I was waiting for her to wake up. Or start laughing, saying that she had been pretending to give me a shock. It wasn't blood really, it was tomato ketchup.

But she didn't. She just kept on staring at me with those dark, sightless eyes. And then I leaned forward and touched her cheek. She was already cold. I could feel the deadness of her skin. I began to shiver all over and some noise in my head thundered, blotting out everything else. It was then I must have blacked out for the next thing I knew, I was lying on the bed staring at the ceiling. For a moment, I forgot where I was. You know, that few seconds of amnesia when you first wake up. And then I remembered. It came back to me in all its awfulness. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping and praying that it had all been some kind of crazy dream. But Pammie was still there, her eyes still staring at me and the blood still seeping on to the sheets.

That's when I rang the police.

I'm no angel and I've done some things I'm not particularly proud of, but I didn't kill Pammie. I couldn't kill her: I loved her too much.

You've got to believe me.

eleven

When he'd finished, Samuel Fraser turned his head away from me so that I wouldn't see him crying. It wasn't an act; he was genuinely cut up. I felt sorry for the poor devil. I sat quietly for some time turning his story over and over in my head while playing with my tab end in the metal ashtray, pushing all the feathery ash into one little heap. It was a soothing process. Certainly the picture of Pammie Palmer was one that was vastly removed from the one presented by her parents – the dull, dumpy little girl who mooned over film stars – but somehow it all rang true. Pammie was a performer, a frustrated actress who turned her life into a dramatic movie. Unfortunately the climax had been tragic. In a strange way, she would have probably relished the notoriety and high drama of her final curtain call.

‘If it wasn't you, Mr Fraser, who killed Pammie,' I said at length, ‘then it must have been her last client, whoever he was. The man she had been with that night, the secret punter.'

‘Yeah, I suppose so,' he said reluctantly, brushing the moisture from his cheek. He still didn't want to believe that Pammie had been two-timing him behind his back, even if it had been purely a matter of business.

I passed over my pack of cigarettes. If ever a man was in need of nicotine, I reckon he was. ‘So,' I said briskly, ‘you'll have names.'

‘Names?'

‘Of her clients.'

‘Oh, I couldn't…'

‘Oh, but you could and you will.'

‘But it's more than my life's worth to give away—'

‘Let's face it, Sammy,
your
life isn't worth the price of a Woolworth's comb at present,' I snapped. ‘If you don't help me, you'll be measured for a rope collar before you can say goodnight sweetheart. I need names.'

He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I … I don't know them all. Pammie … Pammie had her own. It started with a few guys at Denham.'

‘Names, Sammy, names.'

For the second time he stubbed out a half-smoked cigarette with at least five minutes more pleasure in it. I winced at the waste. ‘You got a paper and pencil?' he said.

I passed over my notepad and trusty HB. Sammy scribbled down four names on the pad and passed it back to me.

‘Those are the only ones I know, but I can't think that any of them could murder—'

‘Classic mistake. We're all capable of murder in certain circumstances.'

‘You'll help me, then.'

I slipped the pad into my inside pocket.

‘I'll find Pammie's killer, if that's what you mean.'

*   *   *

As I left the cell, Detective Chief Inspector Knight was waiting for me in the corridor outside. He was looking at his watch. ‘That was half an hour,' he sneered, in an accusatory tone.

‘Doesn't time fly when you're having fun,' I responded with a smile.

‘I hope you got what you wanted.'

‘For what it's worth, Chief Inspector, I'm fairly sure that Samuel Fraser did not kill the girl.'

‘Oh, and what makes you so sure?'

‘I just believe him.'

‘Hah!' Knight virtually spat out the exclamation. ‘We're a little more practical at Scotland Yard. If we believed every villain who claimed he was innocent, we'd never make an arrest.'

I nodded indulgently and turned to leave, but old granite features grabbed my arm. It was as though it had been placed in a metal vice. ‘Before you go, I need to know about the dark lady. Remember.'

I gazed at him blankly for a moment and then with a shy grin I feigned recall. ‘Oh, yes, of course; the dark lady. Her name is Beulah White, a fine jazz singer. She does two sets at The Velvet Cage on Dean Street each evening. You should drop in some time and catch her. She's good.'

‘And what has she to do with this case?'

‘Why nothing at all. I just thought you'd like to know about her. After a day arresting people, her voice could help you unwind.' I slipped on my hat, quickly extricated myself from Knight's loosened grasp and nipped up the stairs before his temper ignited.

‘Hawke!' he yelled angrily, as I reached the top, his voice reverberating all the way up the stairs. Without a pause I passed through the door, thus blocking off the stream of abuse which no doubt was issuing from the sturdy mouth of Detective Chief Inspector Knight.

*   *   *

It was late morning when Constable Arthur Dobson made the discovery. He had been on duty in Baker Street and things had been very quiet. Obviously, all the spivs and the low life were keeping out of his way. They knew not to be careless when Arthur Dobson was around. Keen as mustard he was, even if he said so himself. On a whim, he decided to have a stroll through Regent's Park to see if there was anything there to interest him. Perhaps he could nab a vagrant for sleeping rough in one of His Majesty's parks. That would suit him. An easy bit of business and another notch on his record. Unfortunately for him he found the park as quiet as the streets. It was becoming increasingly clear that he would have to return to the station empty-handed on this occasion. The desk sergeant will be disappointed, he told himself. Little did he know that the desk sergeant couldn't give a damn.

As compensation for his arid morning, Constable Dobson decided to have a crafty fag to cheer himself up. Looking around to check that there was no one about, he slipped into the shrubbery and took a cigarette and matches from his coat pocket. Slipping the cigarette into his mouth, he lit up. As the match flared in the gloom, he saw something on the ground about a yard away from where he was standing, something that caused him to start and the cigarette dropped silently from his open mouth.

He knelt by the object and lit another match. There was no doubt that it was a body. Curled up in a foetal position it was the body of a young boy.

*   *   *

The Palfrey household was just how I imagined it. A solid, middle-class, red-roofed house in a solid, middle-class area of Pinner with a tidy lawn, perky little anonymous blooms in the weed-free borders and pristine net curtains billowing at the windows. I was not relishing the visit but I felt it was my duty to pass on the bad tidings. After all they were my clients and I reckoned that my job wasn't over yet, not until I'd nailed their daughter's killer. I hoped that I'd got there ahead of the police because I knew from past experience that they could be rather ham-fisted in the condolence stakes. Anyway I supposed that informing parents of the death of their daughter was very low in the priorities of Chief Inspector Knight. He had other things on his mind like charging Samuel Fraser. It wouldn't have surprised me if he had forgotten all about the murdered girl's parents in his zeal to obtain a conviction.

I felt sure that the Palfreys wouldn't have tied in the fuzzy picture of Pammie Palmer which was in the papers that morning with their beloved plain-Jane daughter. At least I hoped so.

My stomach churned unpleasantly as I rang the door bell. Some instinct told me it would play a tune. It would not be a simple bring-bring, but in keeping with the nicety of the neighbourhood, there would be a tune. And there was. I heard good old ‘Greensleeves' reverberating down the hallway.

After a time, Freda Palfrey answered the door. She seemed smaller and paler than I remembered her from the day before. Dark shadows formed grey semi-circles under her vacant eyes. Of course, I told myself, she had put on a brave made-up face to come to town. Lipstick, powder and the other tools of feminine artifice had been brought into play to deceive the world, to hide the pain and anguish of a distressed mother. In the home, such deceit was not necessary. And now, here I was, about to put a final seal on that distress. I hated myself.

‘Mr Hawke … we weren't expecting you. Do you have news?'

My face must have told her all.

She stared for a moment at me with a mixture of disbelief and horror. I had come with the tidings that she feared the most, but those which in the deepest secret hidey-hole of her heart she knew would come to her eventually. Her little girl was dead.

‘I'm sorry,' I said quietly. Inadequate though it was, I didn't know what else to say.

Her eyes moistened and her lip trembled but she held herself erect and fought against her rising emotions. ‘You'd better come in and tell us all about it.'

She led me into a spick and span parlour and left me there while she went to find her husband. ‘He'll be in the garden shed,' she muttered matter-of-factly.

There were two pictures of Pamela in the room but they were of the Pamela of old: plain, dumpy and submissive. She gazed at me unwaveringly with docile, simpering eyes. Ever the actress was our Pamela. There was also a sepia-tinted print on a side table of Mr and Mrs Palfrey on their wedding day. He was wearing a tight pinstripe suit which looked as though it had been painted on while she was in a very frilly wedding dress with a mob cap of a matching material on her head. They looked happy and normal. He had a bright face and a jaunty moustache and his features suggested nothing of the pedantic, small-minded dullard he was to become. She, on the other hand, while pretty seemed frail and grateful.

‘Mr Hawke.'

I turned to face the same couple standing side by side on the threshold of the room as though they were waiting for my permission to enter. What decay thirty years had wrought upon them. They had become other people and somehow the joy of living had leaked out of them.

I nodded, not trusting myself with words just yet. Taking on the role of host, with a gesture I bid them sit down. Clasping each other's hands, they perched on the faded moquette sofa.

‘What is it then?' asked Mr Palfrey, already guessing the gist of my response.

‘I'm sorry to tell you that … your daughter … Pamela … is dead.'

I got no further. Mrs Palfrey clamped her hand to her mouth and gave searing moan before melting sideways into the arms of her husband.

‘She was murdered,' I added.

‘Murdered!' Palfrey reacted with anger. ‘By whom, for God's sake!'

‘That has yet to be discovered, but the police are interviewing her … boyfriend.' I used this rather circumspect expression because I didn't think this couple were quite ready for the idea that their beloved daughter had a lover.

‘Boyfriend. She had a boyfriend! Was it he who lured her away from us, from her home?' Palfrey had shaken off his wife now and was staring at me as though I was responsible for his daughter's death.

I shook my head. ‘I'm afraid the story I have to tell will distress you. But it's the truth and I suppose it has to be faced.'

‘Don't talk in riddles, man. What are you trying to say?'

‘Pamela deceived you. At home she was the demure rather plain little girl you wanted her to be, but it was a part she played according to your expectations. In reality she was a pretty girl, glamorous even, with an appetite for life and she was determined to enjoy it. She was just waiting for the opportunity to shed her old life with you and step into a new and exciting one in the bright lights of London. The cinema was her drug; it showed her there was another world out there.'

‘A wild and wicked one,' asserted Palfrey, but now his manner was more subdued.

‘That was part of the attraction. She met an out-of-work actor and formed a relationship with him. Then she left here to go and live with him.'

‘Live with him! In sin?'

‘If you mean without marrying him, yes.'

‘I … just cannot believe this. It's some nasty fairy tale.'

Mrs Palfrey sat up and wiped her eyes. ‘No, it's not, Donald. Mr Hawke wouldn't be that cruel. What he's telling us is the truth. You know it. I know it. We both sensed … we both … but we never spoke.'

For a long moment there was an awful silence while both parents tried to readjust to the reality of the situation. Their little girl was dead and no amount of grief, regret, recriminations, anger or money was going to bring her back.

It was Mrs Palfrey who spoke first, her eyes moist but calm and her voice even and under control. It was then that I saw that in fact she was much the stronger of the two. The husband was all bluster and routine – his way of keeping the truth at bay. She, on the other hand, had a firmer grasp on reality. Her stern features and flinty eyes suggested to me that she believed unpleasant facts were something to accept and deal with, not to deny or ignore.

‘Can you tell us the whole story, please? How she came to be murdered … and everything.'

I nodded. ‘D'you mind if I smoke?'

For a fraction of a second, Palfrey's posture stiffened as though he was going to refuse, but it was an automatic reaction and the moment passed. I told them all I knew about Pamela, her relationship with Samuel Fraser and the manner of her death. As I unveiled this horror tale, the silent Palfreys sat before me, melting into each other like two wax effigies caught in a heat-wave. Their faces were drained of expression and emotion. I was the storyteller from their worst nightmares.