Authors: David Roberts
Edward gave Miss Hay his card and she wrote her address and telephone number on a piece of paper for him. ‘I will give this to Chief Inspector Pride. I know he will want to talk to Mrs Westmacott, tomorrow probably. I will also tell Mr Lyall where you are.’
He was exhausted when he left The Larches but easier in his mind. He could not have slept if he had not himself given the mother and child the news they had been dreading. To have left it to the Chief Inspector would have been unthinkable. He was going to do his utmost to bring Westmacott’s killers to justice. Only then could he look Alice in the eye and say he had done what he had promised.
When he got back to his rooms, he telephoned the Chief Inspector to tell him he had broken the news to Mrs Westmacott and give him her sister’s address.
‘You know who she is, I imagine?’ Pride said.
‘Who?’
‘The sister, Georgina Hay.’
‘No, is she someone special?’
‘She won the Double 12 Hour race at Brooklands in 1930.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘She is a racing driver. I saw her race once,’ Pride confessed, giving Edward an unexpected and somewhat baffling glimpse of the private life he had never before acknowledged having. ‘She was driving an Ulster Austin, I seem to remember.’
‘Good Lord! Women do everything nowadays. But I thought you had to be rich to race motorcars?’
‘Not necessarily. At any rate, I have never heard that Miss Hay was rich.’
‘That explains why she lives in Weybridge – to be near the course.’
‘Presumably,’ Pride said, sounding as if he rather regretted having raised the matter.
When he had put the receiver down, Edward sank into an armchair and tried to think. Fenton brought him a whisky and soda and asked if he would be dining at home. He was not feeling like eating but Fenton persuaded him to have a bowl of soup and a cutlet and he did feel better for it.
Before he went to bed he put through a trunk call to Chartwell. He knew Churchill worked late. Churchill answered the telephone himself and brushed aside his apologies for disturbing him.
‘I rarely go to bed before two,’ he growled. ‘It drives my wife mad.’ He listened to what Edward had to say about Westmacott. ‘This is the evil we face,’ he said at last. ‘Men are made monsters by ideology and good men pay with their blood. May I count on you to keep me informed of developments? I rely on you, my boy, to track down his murderers.’
As Edward climbed into bed he felt weary and depressed. Why did these people have confidence in his detective powers when he had so little himself?
The following morning PC Robbins presented himself at Albany. He was young, enthusiastic and in awe of Edward. He sat on the edge of the chair to which Edward had directed him, refused food or drink but accepted a cigarette.
‘So you come on duty at three – in the middle of the night – and finish at ten?’
‘Yes, my lord.’
‘It’s a long shift and some would say the worst. I suppose you are not married. I can’t imagine a wife permitting her husband to leave home at what – two?’
Robbins laughed. ‘No, I am not married. I like being up and about to see the dawn – though in winter it can be deathly cold. This time of year it’s fair enough.’
‘Is it a quiet time, I mean compared with the evenings?’
‘Usually, my lord. But the safe-cracker and the cat burglar – they like the quiet, when respectable folk are in bed and asleep.’
‘So it must have been a shock – well, of course, it would have been a shock – to see the body hanging from the bridge. Where was it? Near the embankment or in the middle of the bridge?’
‘It was quite close to the embankment but it was a devil of a job to get it down and no mistake.’
‘Could he have hanged himself, do you think?’
‘Not from the bridge.’
‘From the shore?’
The policeman thought about it. ‘No, my lord. I don’t see how he could. At low tide the lowest girder on the bridge – the one he was hanging from – was not so far above the ground . . . the mud I should say . . . but there was nothing he could have climbed on. It would have had to have been something quite large. A chair was no good. He couldn’t have tied the rope to the girder from a chair, my lord, let along hanged himself. It would have sunk in the mud. And then at high tide – that was about two hours before I saw him – he would have had to have waded into the water. Suicide? It don’t ring true, do it, my lord?’
Edward was forced to agree with him. ‘So what would be your guess as to how the body got there?’
‘My lord?’
‘Well, do you think a car could have stopped on the bridge and . . .’
‘No, my lord, it must have been done from below.’
‘Not even one of your cat burglars could have climbed under the bridge to affix the rope?’
‘I don’t see how they could have managed it. If the poor gentleman was still alive . . .’
‘He might have been drugged . . .’
‘Even then, my lord, the body would have been too heavy to handle.’
‘Someone on a boat?’
‘I suppose so. One of them barges perhaps. They go slow but,’ he scratched his head, ‘even at high tide no barge could have got near enough to the shore, where the body was hanging. I think it’s more likely it were done when the tide were lower with a ladder resting on a flat piece of wood – to make a platform laid on the mud, if you understand me – maybe quite soon before I saw it hanging there.’
‘I suppose the person who put his hat on his head and hung his umbrella from his coat pocket would have removed whatever it was he used to get up to the girder?’
‘It seems so, my lord. I would have noticed elseways. Shall I show you where the poor gentleman was hanging, my lord?’
‘If you have the time, but I hate to keep you from your bed.’
‘Nah, that’ll be all right.’
They took the Lagonda down to Chelsea Bridge, the constable delighting to ride in such a car and asking technical questions about engine size and acceleration which Edward was only able to answer in the most general terms.
They parked on the north side of the bridge and viewed it from below. It was muddy and there was garbage floating in an oily pool bumping at the shoreline. Edward gazed at it for some time and then said, ‘What’s that shining over there in the mud?’
The constable peered into the debris at the water’s edge and said, ‘It might be a bracelet . . . no, wait a jiffy. It’s one of them powder compacts the ladies use.’
‘Do you think we can get it?’
Edward looked at the constable and the constable looked at Edward and sighed. ‘I suppose so, my lord.’
‘Good man!’
Muddied but triumphant Constable Robbins returned from the river clutching the compact. Edward looked at it closely. It was modern with what looked like a gold cover. Valuable probably, he thought and, when he opened it, he saw it had a design on the inside of the lid. He recognized it at once. It was a dolphin, similar to the design he had noticed on Lyall’s ring. He knew he ought to turn it over to the Chief Inspector but decided that he wasn’t going to – at least not yet. It was too much of a coincidence to find it here. It had to have some connection with Westmacott’s death. But before he asked Lyall just what that connection was, he wanted time to brood about it.
He walked on to the bridge and leaned over the parapet as far as he could. ‘I am inclined to agree with you, Robbins. It must all have happened from below the bridge.’
‘Careful, my lord. We don’t want another death.’
Edward dropped back to stand beside the constable. ‘So how many people might have seen it before you did? It must have been very obvious from the shore.’
‘There were very few people around and Londoners don’t as a rule look about them as they walk but I take your point, sir. The body can only have been hanging there for a few minutes.’
‘You’re sure you didn’t see a boat – one that might have been used by the killer to get away?’
‘I don’t rightly know, my lord. I weren’t thinking of boats at the time. I was thinking of the body. I thought some poor soul had killed himself.’
‘Well, you have been very helpful, constable. Now go and have a hot meal. It may be spring but the wind’s cold.’
‘Thank you very much, my lord,’ Robbins said, touching his helmet respectfully and pocketing the pound note Edward had pressed into his hand. On his pay of sixty-two shillings a week and one shilling boot allowance, a pound was worth wading in the mud for. Bobbies on the beat had to augment their wages as and when they could but that did not mean Robbins was going to break the rules and have the Chief Inspector breathing down his neck. ‘You will give the powder compact to the Chief Inspector, my lord?’
‘Leave it with me,’ Edward said smoothly. ‘If you remember anything later, let me know. Here is my card.’
After the constable had departed, Edward remained leaning over the bridge watching the boats go by. He was glad of his coat and scarf because it was cold, even in the sunshine. It was a peaceful scene but Edward felt depressed. Chelsea was a favourite bridge of his and now it had been defiled. He would never be able to look at it again without thinking of Westmacott’s body left dangling above the water. It was so deliberate, so callous. Whom was it so important to taunt with the manner of Westmacott’s killing? Why was this gesture of contempt made? Why not just drop the body in the river as so many bodies had been dropped over the centuries? Indeed, until the Great Stink of 1858 had forced Parliament to do something about it, the Thames served both as sewer and morgue. He remembered how, in
Our Mutual Friend,
Rogue Riderhood had made his living fishing dead bodies out of the river, even murkier then than now.
He thought of Verity on her way back to Spain and felt even more depressed. Should he give up all this police work and go after her? He wanted her and these few days in London had been so unsatisfactory. Was he losing her or had he never possessed her? The idea of anyone possessing Verity was so ridiculous that he was cheered up again. There floated into his mind the image of Gerda Meyer and he toyed with the idea of telephoning her. She, too, was going back to Spain, with Kavan. Perhaps they had already gone. He really disliked the man. He wondered if it was simple jealousy but decided that, despite his being a superb photographer and no doubt a brave man, there was something showy about Kavan which grated – that ridiculous nickname for one thing – ‘Bandi’! Still, you had to be brave to get near enough to danger to take those photographs but . . . He decided it would be demeaning to run after Gerda. In any case, he had rejected her and she must think him the most awful idiot. At least he could look Verity in the eye when he next saw her without feeling ashamed of himself.
It was all the more disturbing, therefore, when he arrived back at his rooms, to find Gerda waiting for him. She kissed him, asked after his eye and said he was looking tired. She had just been passing, she said unconvincingly, and thought she might come and say goodbye. Fenton informed him later that she had been waiting for forty minutes.
‘I was just going to leave you a note but here you are.’
‘I am so pleased you came. Have you had lunch? I’m starving.’ Suddenly, it was true. His appetite, which had disappeared on Chelsea Bridge, had returned with a vengeance.
‘No, and I’m starving too. I hoped you might ask me to lunch.’
‘Where shall we go?’
‘Somewhere grand, please. Don’t forget, it’s the condemned man’s last meal. There’s not much food in Spain now, or at least not where we’re going.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Barcelona eventually, I think, but Madrid first.’
‘Verity’s going to be in Madrid, isn’t she? She said the Republicans would be trying to lift the siege.’
‘According to what I have heard, it doesn’t look as though the siege
will
be lifted. They won’t admit it but the attempt to throw back Franco’s army has failed.’
‘André’s still here?’
‘Yes. We go everywhere together.’
‘He doesn’t mind you having lunch with me?’
‘He doesn’t know I’m having lunch with you,’ she said like a naughty schoolgirl.
They ended up at Claridge’s. Charles Malandra, the maître d’hôtel, welcomed Edward warmly and reprimanded him for not having been more recently. They drank champagne – Krug ’28 – with their smoked salmon and began another bottle with the
Barbue au Vin du Rhin
. Edward chose a ‘23 Romanée La Tâche to go with the
perdreau du Kent Souvaroff
– partridge served with foie gras and truffles. They ordered jam omelettes to follow washed down with coffee and brandy. He began to feel rather dizzy but Gerda seemed unaffected by the alcohol if rather over-affectionate. Edward suggested a prize for whichever of them spotted the most celebrities. Edward won by noticing Princess Marina in a corner with a good-looking young naval officer. Gerda demanded more brandy and suggested they share a cigar. By the time they had smoked the cigar and drunk their brandy, the restaurant, which had been full when they began their meal, was empty but Monsieur Malandra made no effort to evict them.
The brandy, on top of the champagne and the burgundy, had made them intimate and they bent their heads together as they exchanged secrets. Edward’s tongue was loosened by alcohol and he began to spill out his frustrations, telling Gerda how much he dreaded losing Verity. ‘Y’know, Gerda,’ he said, feeling his tongue thick in his mouth, ‘when I was first taken fishing in Scotland, a boy about my own age, from the village, taught me how to tickle trout. You lay your hand just below the surface of the water,’ – he demonstated with the tablecloth standing in for the river – ‘and wait for the trout to swim over your palm. My friend – Dougal was his name, I’ve just remembered – caught two fat trout that way. Try as I might, I never caught anything but once – just once and I’ll never forget it – a small, thin fish rested on my hand for a second and I thought . . . I thought I
had
him but, with a little twist of his tail,’ Edward waved the cigar in the air, ‘he was gone. That’s what I feel about Verity. Just when I think I have her, she wriggles out of my grasp. I say, am I becoming maudlin? Forgive me. I don’t normally drink so much at lunch.’