In exchange for forty-three pounds and seventy pence, Sophie provided us with the location to which she’d followed Paul and the unknown woman. She added a vague description of his companion for free.
She left without bothering to thank me for the lunch, and I paid the hefty bill.
“Did we learn anything, Gemma?” Jayne asked once we were back on the street.
“If this address turns out to be a dead end, we learned nothing close to being worth what it cost us. I’ll pay you back for that, thanks. If I’m going to be asked for bribes, I need to start carrying cash.”
“Less than fifty pounds isn’t much of a bribe.”
“No, it isn’t. But it was enough in this case.”
“Are we going to try to find this woman?”
“Might as well see what our money bought us. It’s two o’clock now. If she has an office job, she’ll likely be at work, but I want to give it a try, and as we don’t have a name, a phone number, or a flat number, there’s nothing we can do but pop around and hope she’s in. Fortunately, the address Sophie gave us isn’t far from here.”
“Our luck’s holding so far,” Jayne said.
“Which is what worries me,” I replied.
Once again, we gathered up our shopping bags. I followed the directions on my phone. Down busy Regent Street, turning east before we reached Piccadilly, down narrow streets with narrow pavements, shopfronts on the ground level, flats and offices above. I hoped the place we were going to wasn’t a large block of flats. I didn’t fancy pushing every entry button and asking for some unknown woman who might know a man by the name of Paul Erikson.
Fortunately, it wasn’t.
The area was moderately nice. Flowers spilled from boxes in some of the upper levels, the paint on window and doorframes wasn’t peeling, the shop fronts were clean, and the stores looked prosperous. A typical London pub stood on the corner, dark wood, gold print above the door, leaded windows, a couple of small tables arranged outside.
“How many pubs are there in London, do you think?” Jayne asked. “Must be hundreds. Thousands.” She pointed to the next corner where sat yet another typical London pub.
“I don’t know. I doubt anyone truly knows,” I said.
The address we’d been given was in the center of the row. Inside the door, four mailboxes and four buttons indicated the number of flats inside.
I chose Flat One to begin and pressed the button. No answer. Flat Two responded with a deep man’s voice. When I said I was looking for Paul Erikson he growled, “Never heard of ’im,” and disconnected.
A woman answered the call at Flat Three. “Paul? I have no idea where he is. No reason I should.”
“I’d like to speak to you about him. May I come in?”
“Why?” asked the disembodied voice.
“He’s been in the news lately. Have you seen the reports?”
“I try not to watch the news. Are you a reporter? I’ve got no time for reporters, and if he’s in some sort of trouble, it’s got nothing to do with me.”
“My name is Gemma Doyle. I was married to Paul at one time.”
“Gemma? The great and mighty, never-to-be-forgotten Saint Gemma herself?”
I glanced at Jayne. She shrugged in response.
“Second floor. On the left,” the voice said as the buzzer buzzed and the lock clicked. I pulled open the inner door.
These shopping bags were starting to get mighty heavy. The building didn’t have a lift, so we trudged up to the second floor, which would be what Americans call the third floor. A woman matching the description Sophie had given me stood in the open doorway to our left. Late twenties, tall, thin, a mane of flaming red hair. Judging by the number of freckles on her face, the hair was her natural color. She wore black leggings and a loose top and eyed us suspiciously.
“Thanks for seeing us,” I said.
“How could I resist?”
“I’m Gemma and this is Jayne. I don’t know your name.”
“No reason you should. I’m Mimi. Come on in.” The main room of the flat was small and nicely but simply decorated. Framed movie posters from the 50s and 60s covered the walls. A brightly colored afghan was tossed over a threadbare couch. A computer and printer sat on a desk under the front window. The curtains were pulled back and the glass sparkled in the daylight. The flat was clean and tidy. Judging by the scent, Mimi had enjoyed reheated leftover pizza for lunch.
Jayne and I dropped our burdens by the door. “Looks like you’ve had fun,” Mimi said.
“No,” I said.
“Yes,” Jayne said.
“When I heard the buzzer, I was hoping you’d come about the ad.”
“Ad?”
“I’m looking for a flatmate. The rent on this place is more than I can handle on my own. My previous flatmate didn’t exactly work out.”
“Paul Erikson?”
She laughed. “Yeah. Waste of space that one. Why are you looking for him and how did you find me?”
I ignored the questions and asked one of my own. “How do you know my name?”
Mimi dropped onto the couch and curled her legs up under her. She didn’t invite us to sit. Jayne crossed the room and looked out the window.
“Paul and I were together for a couple of months. He told me he’d sold his flat and hadn’t found another yet, so I let him move in with me. Big mistake that.” She grinned, not looking too concerned. “I doubt there was ever any flat to be sold. If there had been, he’d lost it long ago. He was a charmer, I’ll give him that. Most of the time, he was a charmer, that is. When he got into his cups, he could get maudlin. All woe-is-me. Gemma this and Gemma that. The best woman he’d ever known and he let her go.”
Jayne laughed. I snorted. “Not that I much care what he had to say about me, but he didn’t let me do anything. I left him, and I haven’t regretted it for a moment.”
“Then we understand each other, you and me. The thing about that sort of charm, is it wears off mighty fast.”
Which was exactly my experience with Paul. Being young and somewhat naive, I hadn’t yet realized how quickly a woman could tire of that sort of charm, as Mimi called it. I avoided looking at Jayne. I wasn’t the only one who’d chosen badly at one time. Jayne had had a series of boyfriends of whom I’d strongly disapproved. I’d been overjoyed when she finally realized the man for her had adored her all along and that she loved him in return. That man was currently on a fishing trip with my own man and my father. I hoped they were catching plenty of fish.
“I realized what was what, eventually, and gave him the boot soon enough,” Mimi said. “One too many instances of him asking me to get the rounds at the pub because someone who owed him money hadn’t come across yet. Thus, I need a new flatmate. I don’t suppose you’re interested.”
“No.”
“What about you?” she asked Jayne.
“Just visiting,” Jayne said.
“What’s this news about Paul I didn’t hear?”
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” I said. “He died. Saturday night.”
Mimi sucked in a breath. Her eyes filled with tears and she glanced away. “That’s tough. We were finished, but I haven’t completely forgotten we had some fun together. For the short time it lasted. Before I started noticing I was always the one picking up the bill and he was forgetting to send me his share of the rent money.”
“Is that why you broke up?”
“Pretty much. I don’t need freeloaders in my life. What happened?”
“It’s likely he was murdered.” I watched her face carefully and saw nothing but surprise mixed with sadness.
“That’s horrible. In a bar brawl or a theft or something?”
“It might have been more personal than that. The police will be contacting everyone on his phone. You should give them a call before they do that.”
“I will. Not that I can help or anything. He lived here for something like two months, but he never had friends round. I never met any of his mates.” She shook her head. “Poor Paul. All that charm and nothing to show for it.”
I let her have a few moments’ silence, and then I said, “Did he ever talk to you about books?”
“Books? No. He told me he owned a bookshop. Made it sound like he had a national chain like Waterstones or something. I looked it up online. Just curious, like. One used bookshop. That’s the shop he owned with you, right? Before you split. Wisely, if you want my opinion.”
“That’s right. We did envision having a chain but never mind that now. Did he bring books home from the shop? When he lived here with you?”
“No. I don’t read much.” She nodded toward the large-screen TV hanging on the wall. “Too much good stuff on telly these days. When I have the time to watch, which isn’t often.”
“What do you do for a living, if I may ask?”
“I’m a bartender. I work at the pub on the corner, you might have passed it on your way here.”
“We did. Nice looking place.”
“It’s okay. Tourist trap mostly, so I get good tips. Speaking of which … I have to get ready. I start work at four today.”
“Can I give you my number? In case you remember anything?”
“Sure. It’s unlikely I will, though.” She pulled out her phone, and we exchanged numbers in the way people do these days. Not scribblings on a scrap of paper. “Like I said, I never met any of Paul’s mates, and I never went to his shop so I never met the people he worked with. I never even met his parents, but I gather they live not far away.”
“I plan to pay a condolence call on them in the next day or two. If you like, I’ll ask them to let you know what the arrangements are.”
She nodded. “Thanks. I’d like that.”
Jayne stepped away from the window. “Thank you for your time,” she said.
I’d reached a dead end. I didn’t know how I felt about that. On one hand, I was disappointed. I’d set about to try to find the book Paul wanted me to see, which I believed might lead to his killer. I owed Paul nothing at all, but I did grieve his death, and I wanted to do this one last thing, the one thing I could do for him. I did not care to find myself forced to give up the search.
On the other hand, I most certainly did not want to spend my valuable vacation time trying to follow Paul’s trail through the rabbit warrens of the streets of London, as though I were Sherlock Holmes after the source of the goose that swallowed the Blue Carbuncle. Now I could return to the company of my family and friends. I might suggest Jayne and I invite Pippa and my mother to join us for tea one afternoon at a fancy hotel. After that, we could pop into the National Gallery or visit the Victoria and Albert to see some of my favorite pieces.
I was heading for the door, mentally planning a day of being nothing but a tourist in my own city, when Mimi said, “Come to think of it, there is one thing.”
I turned around. “Yes?”
“I don’t know anything I can tell you, but I can give you something.”
“What?”
“When Paul moved out, he left a box here. He said he’d be back for it, but …” She shrugged. “I told him I’d give it to him when he paid me the back rent he owes. I never heard from him again.”
“What’s in it?”
“I had a quick peek. Junk mostly. Some books. Some stuff he brought from work, he said. Nothing I’m interested in. You can have it. This place is small enough. I don’t need someone else’s stuff cluttering it up.”