‘Mon Repos?’ Jacob repeated, scribbling on his notepad. ‘Number Seven, Tower Mews?’
‘Isn’t that what I said?’ demanded the querulous voice at the other end of the telephone. ‘You’d best set off right away.’
‘Absolutely. And if you can find a way to detain them until I arrive, there’s an extra fiver in it for you. Don’t arouse their suspicion, whatever you do.’
‘Tall order, that. Very tall.’ There was a momentary pause. ‘How about another ten pounds if I manage to pull it off?’
‘You drive a hard bargain, Mr Hennessey.’
‘Listen, chum, I’m doing you a big favour here. I don’t know how these people will react when they find out I’ve blown the gaff on them. They could turn nasty. But I’m public-spirited, see?’
‘In the finest tradition of Clarion readers, yes.’ Time was short and Jacob wasn’t in the mood to haggle, so he contented himself with a touch of satire. ‘All right, you’ve twisted my arm. Done.’
The man coughed. ‘You will bring payment in full? In cash? I don’t believe in cheques.’
‘You can trust the Clarion,’ Jacob said. ‘I’m on my way.’
He bounced out of the telephone booth into the vast and gleaming lobby of the Hemlock Hotel. The call meant he’d have to sacrifice the hotel’s bacon, eggs, and fried bread, but the surge of joy he felt when receiving an exclusive tip-off offered rich compensation. That tingling thrill of keeping one step ahead of the police never palled.
His front page story about the Crystal Ball Killing had reaped an immediate dividend. He’d taken care to mention that he was staying at the Hemlock Hotel, hoping that anyone with valuable information would have the nous to contact him there. On his way in to breakfast he’d been intercepted by a flunkey and directed to the telephone. A boarding house owner in Blackpool was on the line.
According to Hennessey, two guests had arrived at his desk without a prior booking the previous evening. They looked shifty, in Hennessey’s opinion, although Jacob didn’t regard that as significant. Couples arriving at hotels with minimal baggage usually looked shifty, for reasons that were predictable and seldom criminal. The man had registered them as Mr and Mrs John Smith, with an address in Gas Street, Manchester. His companion answered the official police description of Winnie Lescott.
Hennessey might be mistaken, but Jacob was optimistic. The boarding house owner sounded sly but shrewd – ideal qualities in an informant. And how many brown-skinned women in their twenties would be checking into a seaside hotel within fifty miles of Hemlock Bay on the same day the prime suspect in the Crystal Ball Murder disappeared?
As Jacob headed for the revolving doors, he almost collided with the man he’d seen talking to Laurie in the Mermaid the previous night. Louis Carson.
‘I’m so sorry, sir. Please excuse me. And a very good morning to you.’
In fact the near-collision was Jacob’s fault, but he accepted the apology with a gracious flap of the hand.
‘Morning. Mr Carson, isn’t it?’
‘Indeed. I have the honour to be the manager here. I do hope you’re enjoying your stay.’
‘Lovely, thanks.’
As Jacob moved away, the other man caught him by the sleeve. ‘It’s Mr Flint, isn’t it? The newspaperman?’
‘That’s me.’ Jacob felt a surge of pleasure at being recognised. Was this the sign of a growing reputation, something to mention to Gomersall next time his salary was reviewed? ‘So you’re a Clarion reader?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t have much time to read newspapers, but the girl on the desk just pointed you out to me. You arrived on Sunday, she said. And you had the misfortune to be involved in that dreadful business up at Paradise?’
‘That’s right. Did you know the victim, by any chance?’
‘This man Bellamy?’ Carson shook his head. ‘Never met the poor fellow. I don’t believe in fortune telling.’
Unctuous as the man was, Jacob was inclined to believe him.
‘So you’ve no idea if he had any enemies?’
Carson shook his head. ‘I spoke to Inspector Young and offered him a room for the night with my compliments. My impression is that he suspects a domestic tragedy. With any luck the matter will soon be cleared up and everyone will be able to get on with their lives.’
Everyone except Bellamy and Winnie Lescott, Jacob thought. ‘The inspector won’t be staying here long, then?’
‘No, he seems confident, thank goodness. He assured me he wouldn’t need the room for a second night.’
*
Jacob nipped back to his room to collect his notebook, pen, and a couple of sheets of Clarion letterhead and was soon bowling along the road to Blackpool in his nimble little Riley 9. The skies were grey and miserable, and desultory spots of rain toyed with the holidaymakers’ emotions by hinting at a cloudburst which never quite materialised.
He made good time and had little difficulty in finding Mon Repos. As he’d anticipated, it was the most dilapidated of all the guest houses in Tower Mews. He presumed it was also the cheapest, hence the appeal to a couple who were short of money and on the run. In case he needed to make a quick getaway, he parked in front of the door and rapped the rusty knocker.
‘Mr Hennessey? I’m Jacob Flint.’
The man wore a grubby vest, ancient trousers and a pair of carpet slippers. A Woodbine dangled precariously from a small, mean mouth. He reeked of smoke and avarice.
‘They’re upstairs.’ Hennessey’s grin revealed more gaps than teeth. If he was concerned about harbouring a brutal murderer, he showed no sign of it. ‘Went straight back up there after breakfast and locked the door. Last night I had a complaint from the people in the next room about the noise they were making. Worse than newlyweds, they said. I suppose if she gets sent to the gallows, they never will be wed. Ah well, at least she’s had some fun. Live and let live, that’s what I say.’
Jacob didn’t attempt to unravel the contradictions in this philosophy. ‘Which room?’
Hennessey stood directly in front of him, barring his way into the building. He extended a grubby hand stained yellow by tobacco. ‘Money first. Nobody puts one over on Dick Hennessey.’
Jacob pulled out his wallet and peeled off the notes. The other man counted them ostentatiously to ensure that he wasn’t being cheated and then shuffled to one side.
‘Number Nine. Two floors up. Watch that loose board after the first landing. Wouldn’t want you to break your neck, would we?’
Jacob hurried up the steps. A foetid aroma hung over the staircase, a charmless blend of overcooked sausages and cheap cigarettes. A different world from the polished magnificence of the Hemlock Hotel, he thought. How the other half holidayed.
He reached his destination without mishap and put his ear to the keyhole. There was the sound of heavy breathing and a woman’s muffled laughter. He banged on the door.
Inside the room, a man swore violently and told the unseen intruder what he could do.
‘Miss Lescott!’ Jacob shouted through the door. ‘My name is Jacob Flint and I’m a reporter with the Clarion newspaper. We want to pay for your story.’
There was a short silence.
‘What are you talking about?’ A woman’s voice, breathless.
In the course of his short career in Fleet Street, Jacob had lost most of the illusions about human nature he’d once cherished. When chasing a scoop, there wasn’t room to indulge in finer feelings. He’d learned to concentrate on what people cared for most.
‘Twenty-five pounds in cash for exclusive rights to your story. In other words, you don’t talk to anyone else from the press but me. Half the money the moment you sign the contract. The other half when we publish the first instalment tomorrow. Better be quick, before my editor changes his mind.’
He heard muffled whispering, but couldn’t make out what they were saying.
‘Twenty-five pounds?’ the woman demanded.
‘I’ve got the contract in my pocket.’ This wasn’t quite true, but he’d scribble a few words on a sheet bearing the Clarion letterhead to keep the bean counters happy. ‘The moment you sign, I’ll put the cash in your hand.’
There was another pause.
‘I’m not decent.’
Jacob clenched his fist in triumph. As usual, money talked.
‘I can wait,’ he said cheerfully.
*
An hour later, Jacob had a signed contract in his pocket, a notebook full of hasty scrawl, and two bemused passengers in the back of his Riley 9. Hennessey had, on payment of another pound, permitted Jacob to interview Winnie and her companion, whose name was Johnny Gratrix, in the dingy cubbyhole he called the ‘guest lounge’. He’d even stumped up refreshments, in the form of stewed tea and dry custard creams.
Johnny, a hulking labourer, was a native of Hemlock Bay who had worked as a farmhand prior to starting work at Paradise two months ago. He assisted the head gardener and was more at ease wielding a shovel than explaining himself to the press. Winnie, much brighter and more opinionated than her lover, did all the talking. Jacob guessed that, in her relationships with men, she wore the trousers.
Jacob was an adept cross-examiner and a patient listener. Despite Winnie’s taste for digression, he soon pieced her story together. Her father’s puppet show was, she claimed, the biggest attraction at the pleasure grounds, and since her mother’s death, he’d relied on her help to keep the show going. As far as Jacob could judge, the old man was the one person in the world she really cared for, but she hated feeling that, like Skeleton Sue, she was just one more puppet on a string. A woman of strong passions, she possessed a quaintly old-fashioned romantic streak. She longed to escape to a better life, but one disastrous relationship followed another as she searched in vain for the man who could give her everything she wanted. Jacob suspected he didn’t exist.
Johnny had taken a shine to her from the moment he’d set eyes on her, she explained, but she’d given him short shrift because he was like so many men: Only Interested in One Thing. He was, she said, ‘a ladies’ man’, a genteel euphemism which Jacob enjoyed so much he underlined it three times in his scribbled notes. Besides, she added virtuously, when she met Johnny, she was already spoken for. She’d always been fascinated by things mystical, and when Gareth Bellamy arrived to ply his trade in Paradise, he entranced her with his ability to read her palm and see a rosy future unfolding for her in the crystal. Before long, they embarked on a tempestuous affair. But her hair-trigger temper had scared off Bellamy’s numerous predecessors, and it didn’t take much to rouse her to fury. Most of all she hated Bellamy even looking at another woman.
‘I needed to be his one and only, Mr Flint,’ she said, taking a slurp of tea. ‘A lady has her pride.’
‘Of course,’ Jacob said. ‘Quite right, too. And did Bellamy… I mean, Gareth, actually misbehave with other women?’
Winnie lifted her chin. ‘He led them on. Same as he did with me. Dropped hints about what he saw in the crystal. Told me he was just trying to keep his clients satisfied, but that was flannel. I gave him what for, believe me.’
Jacob did believe her. She was a big woman with thin skin. No doubt a frightening prospect when provoked.
‘Can you tell me about your final quarrel?’
‘His face was badly scratched. Someone had really got her claws into his left cheek. He must have tried it on once too often, maybe got carried away. I gave his other cheek a smack. No more than he deserved.’
‘What was his explanation?’
‘Some woman had gone berserk because she didn’t like what he’d seen in the crystal. Rubbish! I didn’t believe a word of it. As if Gareth ever gave anyone bad news. He always said it was unprofessional to upset the punters, see?’
Jacob could think of another word, but he let it pass. Bellamy was a born liar and he’d forfeited any sympathy by attacking Martha. Jacob understood why Winnie had hit the man, even if he didn’t approve. The question was: had she gone so far as to kill him? She denied it, and he believed her.
According to Winnie, Bellamy tried to make it up to her by swearing that he’d seen a vision of a wonderful future. He was about to come into a good deal of money and would be able to set them up in comfort far from Hemlock Bay. Maybe on the east coast: Scarborough, Bridlington, or Whitby.
Winnie didn’t believe a word he said. None of his promises ever amounted to anything, and the scratches on his face were the last straw. In her mind, they proved he was never going to change. She told him she never wanted to see him again.
So she’d turned to Gratrix for comfort, and together they hatched a hare-brained scheme for running away together. Gratrix had nothing, but she’d saved some money of her own for a rainy day, and she told her father she needed to get away for a while. She and Gratrix had been drinking in the Fisherman’s Arms, not far from the lighthouse – where the landlord, Johnny’s uncle, interpreted the licensing laws with extreme flexibility. The two of them were fantasising about what to do next when one of the locals arrived, agog with the news of murder in Paradise. Winnie’s lover was dead, his head crushed to a pulp by his own crystal ball.
The news threw her into a panic. She was terrified the police would treat her as the obvious suspect. Her fellow workers at Paradise had never liked her and would be quick to point the finger. Someone who looked different from everyone else was always a convenient scapegoat. Johnny Gratrix and the landlord of the Fisherman’s could provide her with an alibi, but she didn’t believe their word would cut any ice with detectives looking for a quick arrest. The sad thing was, Jacob reflected, she was right.
Johnny had begged a farmer he knew to smuggle them out of the village in the cab of his tractor. From the main road they’d thumbed a lift to Blackpool. Winnie was shrewd enough to realise they’d be found sooner or later, but she thought that in the meantime, someone deranged enough to murder Bellamy in the heat of the moment was sure to give themselves away. She’d never even heard the term ‘forensic science’, but even she realised the killer was likely to be covered in blood. Bellamy’s hut wasn’t overlooked, but how would the killer get away from the pleasure grounds without being seen?
How indeed? If Winnie wasn’t guilty, who was? She’d convinced herself that Bellamy had been killed either by the woman who had scratched his face or by a vengeful lover of hers. Jacob knew that wasn’t true, but by the time she’d reached the end of her story, he was persuaded of her innocence. Her account of the naïve and reckless way she and Gratrix had behaved had the ring of truth. What they’d done was stupid but entirely believable. No tissue of lies, however devious, could carry quite as much conviction.
‘You don’t think they’re going to arrest me, then?’ she demanded as he turned on to the road that led to Hemlock Bay.
‘Don’t worry about a thing. You can trust me. The Clarion is right behind you.’
He spoke with such cheery assurance that she didn’t seem to realise it wasn’t a direct response to her question.
*
In the smoking room at the Hemlock Hotel, Inspector Young was relishing his public address. He was standing on a makeshift podium, complete with lectern. Those present might have mistaken his solemn demeanour for that of an archbishop preaching a sermon if not for his habit of stealing glances at the large gilt mirror to check that he looked as commanding as he sounded. Over the years, the inspector had seldom been presented with any opportunity to soak up the limelight. Now he had the good fortune to be investigating a sensational crime, he was intent on making the most of it.
He’d taken the trouble to vet the list of people attending in addition to members of the fourth estate. First and foremost there was the chief constable. Major Busby was a purple-faced old soldier who had never held him in high regard. The major had a long-standing gripe that the local force failed to show the same standards of discipline as his old battalion. When Young had incautiously pointed out that the war was over, the major retorted that the war against crime was never-ending. Their relationship had been strained ever since and the inspector blamed old Busby for standing in the way of his further advancement. With any luck, a successful conclusion to this case would make it impossible to deny him promotion.
Sir Harold Jackson was also there, of course. He chaired the local bench and it was almost as important to impress him as to satisfy old Busby. A good word from Sir Harold would go a very long way. Those present also included the hotel manager Carson and his wife, and two women Sir Harold vouched for as distinguished visitors to the resort. One was an artist, apparently renowned, even if the inspector had never heard of her. The other was a demure young woman called Savernake, daughter of a late Old Bailey judge. People with connections, people who could hardly fail to admire the dynamism with which he’d conducted his investigation.
Thanks to extensive repetition and a series of long and meaningful pauses, his statement took much longer to deliver than the assembled hacks had expected. As he embarked on his peroration, there was an audible muttering and shuffling of feet.
The reporters were desperate to put questions of their own, acutely conscious that Jacob Flint had stolen a march on them. It was bad enough that he was the first newspaperman on the scene, but the fact that he’d actually discovered the dead fortune teller was salt on the wound. His breathless first-hand account had described the melodramatic nature of the killing at exuberant length. The inspector, for all his rhetorical flourishes, had added nothing new. Meanwhile, as the pressmen were uneasily aware, Jacob himself was nowhere to be seen. Nobody knew what he was up to, but all his competitors felt unhappily certain that he was up to something. The whiff of frustration in the air was almost as pungent as the stench of tobacco.
‘In short,’ Inspector Young said, ‘I am confident – absolutely confident, I might emphasise – that we will shortly be in a position to make an arrest. As I’ve already said, my men are leaving no stone unturned in their determination to bring the murderer to justice. Let me repeat that, so there isn’t a shadow of doubt. No. Stone. Unturned.’
He coughed, and allowed himself yet another pause. Although he hadn’t quite reached the last of his somewhat superfluous cue cards, a reporter in the front row, a burly fellow with a bulbous red nose, could restrain himself no longer.
‘Can you assure us that by the end of today, Mr Jacob Flint will be under lock and key?’
The speaker was a crime reporter for the Daily Slogan who bitterly resented being dragged from the hostelries of central London to this outpost of what passed for civilisation in the north of England. His intervention prompted an outburst of merriment which had Inspector Young on his feet and calling for order.
‘Mr Flint has been interviewed,’ the detective announced, ‘and I can tell you that he is not at present helping us with our enquiries.’
‘Hope you’re keeping close tabs on him,’ said the man from the Witness, deadliest rival of the Clarion. ‘Always said one day that lad would go too far.’
Inspector Young took a breath. ‘You gentlemen of the London press will have your little joke.’
‘This is no joking matter,’ the Witness man said. ‘Have you any idea of the number of murder scenes where young Flint has been present before anyone else got a whiff that something was up? Bears close investigation, if you ask me. All we’re asking as citizens and ratepayers is that the police do their job.’
Inspector Young frowned and cleared his throat so menacingly that even the noisiest journalists were subdued.
‘I can tell you all that Mr Jacob Flint…’
His voice trailed away as the heavy door at the rear of the smoking room swung open and Jacob’s head appeared. The first person he caught sight of was Rachel. He gave her a cheeky wink before treating Inspector Young to a triumphant grin.
He marched in and, as he approached the podium, he was followed by Winnie Lescott, her head held high. Johnny Gratrix lumbered along in their wake.
There was a momentary stunned silence before the man from the Daily Slogan, unable to contain his emotions any longer, uttered a loud groan of defeat. He was expressing the collective misery of all his colleagues.
‘Afternoon, Inspector,’ Jacob said breezily. ‘Sorry to butt in, but better late than never. The Clarion brings good news to Hemlock Bay.’
The inspector stared at Winnie Lescott. He opened his mouth to speak, but when she glared, words failed him.
Jacob jumped up on to the podium and beamed down at his professional colleagues.
‘I’m delighted to announce that Miss Lescott here is ready and willing to talk to the police. She is absolutely determined to clear her good name and to give the authorities whatever help she can in bringing the culprit to justice. The death of such a close companion as Mr Bellamy has come as a shocking blow. No wonder she needed to take time with a caring friend to come to terms with the tragedy. She will describe in an exclusive interview with the Clarion the personal nightmare she has experienced during the past twenty-four hours.’
‘But…’ Young began. His face was red and he was gripping the lectern in order to remain steady on his feet. He looked like a man who has been clouted with his own truncheon.
‘Thankfully,’ Jacob interrupted, ‘Miss Lescott has a cast-iron alibi. Mr Gratrix here can tell you exactly where she was throughout the course of yesterday. Other witnesses are available if his word alone will not suffice. Full details for the wider public will appear on tomorrow’s front page. The lady is, of course, innocent of this heinous crime.’ He turned to the detective. ‘Rest assured, Inspector. The Clarion stands ready to give you every possible support in the hunt for the real Crystal Ball Killer.’