Abel Turner had had a good night when the lads came home. He had another one the following night when everybody was still in a party mood, and free drinks were on offer. There was one old Temperance killjoy who carried a placard and warned everybody about the pitfalls of the demon drink but he was hopelessly outnumbered by the contingent in khaki and gave up a little before midnight.
It was a little after that that Turner became aware of a shadow following him. The rent collector was used to this. Any number of wide-shouldered trassenos knew his calling and knew that the little man often carried cash. Because of that, and because he was little, Turner also carried a cudgel, studded with lead at one end, tucked into a special pocket in his long coat. The party spirit was drifting away from him and by the time he’d crossed Ludgate Circus and was making his way up the hill towards Paul’s, he felt decidedly alone. Whoever was behind him had followed him from the Queen’s Head, via the Cornucopia and the Old Lud, and was now just out of sight behind his left shoulder.
Turner toyed with cutting northwards, to the tangle of alleys around Amen Corner, but he knew those streets to be dark and narrow; better stick to the light. He wasn’t as young as he was and he couldn’t be sure of out-running anybody these days. On the other hand, he only had one and three ha’pence on him, so what was worth stealing? On the other hand, did his shadow know that, or even care?
Suddenly, there were no other hands left and Turner felt a large fist grab his collar and spin him round. The cosh was in his hand and immediately out of it again as a hard rap cracked his knuckles and sent it flying. A wooden truncheon, Metropolitan Police, for the use of, was jabbed under his chin and pushing him on to his tiptoes.
‘Now you could,’ said his assailant, ‘take this opportunity to knee me in the balls and do a runner. If you don’t mind being unable to walk for a couple of weeks, that is.’
Turner let out a half-strangled cry. ‘It’s Constable Crawford, isn’t it?’ he managed.
Crawford released his grip, but only slightly. ‘I’m flattered you recognize me without the helmet,’ he said. ‘Sorry to bother you, Mr Turner, but I wasn’t up to playing cat and mouse all over London.’
‘Indeed.’ Turner’s smile had turned to a rictus grin. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’
‘I didn’t have a chance, the other night, to enquire too much into the affairs of the deceased, Alice Groves.’
‘Dear Alice,’ Turner said. ‘I was always very fond.’ He should have felt easier now he knew his shadow was a police officer but there was something in Constable Crawford’s face and Constable Crawford’s truncheon that made that impossible.
‘I’m sure.’ Crawford smiled. ‘You knew she was on the game, of course.’
‘Er … yes.’ Turner shrugged. ‘I try not to judge, Constable Crawford. We all have to earn our crust, don’t we? These are hard times.’
‘Aren’t they, though? Who’s your boss?’
‘Eh?’
Crawford notched the truncheon a little higher. ‘The man you work for,’ he translated for Turner’s benefit. ‘The man who owns the premises at fourteen, Storey’s Yard.’
‘What about him?’
‘In British law, Mr Turner,’ Crawford said, ‘ignorance is no defence. There can’t be many people in this fair city of ours who are more ignorant than you, but, you see, it’s not going to save you from me taking your knee-caps out.’
‘Jack Daventry,’ Turner squawked above the truncheon.
‘Address?’
‘Thirty-six, Firtree Road, Isleworth.’
‘Isleworth.’ Crawford smiled. ‘Delightful suburb.’ He let the truncheon fall. ‘Well, don’t look so worried, Mr Turner; as you see from my civilian attire, I’m off duty tonight. Oh,’ he paused as he turned away. ‘I should try to find that cosh of yours if I were you. You can’t be too careful. There are some really unpleasant people about at this time of night. Mind how you go.’
Adam Crawford knocked on the door at thirty-six, Firtree Road, Isleworth as early as he thought decent the next day. He suspected that Mr Daventry was not a working man as most people would understand it, but even so, it seemed churlish to knock him up betimes. After a short wait, he heard footsteps on the linoleum of the hall and a moustachioed face appeared as the door creaked open an inch or two.
‘Yes?’
‘Mr Daventry?’ Crawford tipped his hat. ‘Mr Jack Daventry?’
Jack Daventry took in the stranger – tall, broad, shoulders like wardrobes. He hadn’t seen him before but that hardly mattered; new muscle was turning up on doorsteps all the time. ‘That depends,’ he said, cagily.
‘On what?’ Crawford pushed the door open and barged his way in.
‘’Ere,’ Daventry shouted. ‘I’ll have the law on you!’
‘Oh, the law’s already here, Mr Daventry. But I can call for reinforcements, if you like.’
‘What?’ All Daventry could do was to follow Crawford into the living room. ‘Look. What the bloody ’ell’s going on?’
Crawford took in the surroundings. Rich without being tasteful, heavy on the chintz and the candelabra. ‘Nice,’ he said, ‘but how much of it comes from immoral earnings, I wonder?’
‘Immoral …? How dare you? Are you a copper?’
Crawford clicked his fingers. ‘I hoped it wouldn’t show,’ he said. Daventry’s eyes swivelled to his rolltop desk. ‘And if there’s a gun or a chiv in there, I really wouldn’t recommend it. Fourteen inches of hardwood wins every time.’ He patted the truncheon discreetly tucked into his trousers. Then he sat down, wincing. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘such weaponry does have its down side.’
‘What do you want?’ Daventry narrowed his eyes at his visitor.
‘It doesn’t look like I’m going to be offered any tea, so I’ll come to the point,’ Crawford said. ‘A number of apartments at number fourteen, Storey’s Yard, Westminster.’
‘What about them?’
‘You own them, I believe.’
‘I do.’ Daventry sat down too, facing the uniform-man-turned-detective. ‘What of it?’
‘The ground floor apartment, to the right as you go in.’
‘Yes?’
‘The tenant was one Alice Groves.’
‘If you say so.’ Daventry leaned back, a little more relaxed now. ‘I can’t say I actually know my tenants. I have people for that.’
‘Abel Turner,’ Crawford nodded, noting Daventry’s reaction. If he had landed the rent collector in any hot water, he really couldn’t care less. ‘Miss Groves is dead.’
‘Oh, yes,’ the landlord said. ‘I had heard something along those lines. Suicide, wasn’t it?’
‘Murder,’ Crawford corrected him.
‘Murder?’ Daventry didn’t like the direction this conversation was taking.
‘You knew that Alice was on the game,’ Crawford said. It was a statement, not a question.
‘No.’ Daventry spread his arms and did his best to look innocent. ‘No, I wouldn’t allow that. All my tenants have the very best bona fides.’
Crawford chuckled. ‘I’m sure they do,’ he said. ‘Ready to go?’ He stood up.
‘Go where?’ Daventry asked.
‘The nick.’
‘The nick?’ Daventry’s eyebrows threatened his hairline.
‘I have to caution you,’ Crawford said, ‘in connection with the unnatural death of Alice Groves.’
‘I don’t know what the bloody ’ell—’ but Jack Daventry’s planned list of expletives never got off the ground because the door to the living room swung open and a stoutish woman stood there, unpinning her second-best marketing hat.
‘I don’t know why we pay a cook,’ she was muttering as she came in. ‘That butcher robs us blind … Oh!’ She stopped when she saw Crawford standing there. ‘I beg your pardon; I didn’t know we had company.’
Daventry blustered. ‘This isn’t company, Ada, it’s Mr …’ he looked at Crawford wild-eyed.
‘Crawford,’ Crawford obliged.
‘Crawford, yes. He’s here to discuss the rents at … at Storey’s Yard.’
Ada narrowed her eyes at her husband. She knew what side her bread was buttered so she seldom rocked the marital boat, but she hated being taken for a fool, by her husband, the butcher or the cook. ‘I thought it was Mr Turner who collected those rents,’ she said.
Crawford clicked his tongue. ‘Old Abel, eh?’ he said, with a chuckle. ‘He’s a card. He asked me to pop in for him; he’s a bit busy at the moment and didn’t have time to come all this way.’
Ada Daventry’s face softened. What a kind young man; and not hard on the eyes, either. ‘How thoughtful,’ she said, looking around and noticing a dearth of teacups. ‘Jack! Why haven’t you got Mr Crawford a cup of tea?’
‘No, really, Mrs Daventry,’ Crawford said. ‘I was just going.’
‘Are you sure? Because it’s no trouble. I need to see Cook about something else, anyway.’ She smiled at him but the way she jabbed her hatpin into the holder on the sideboard made Crawford wince.
‘No, really.’ Jack Daventry was quick to intervene. ‘I’ll just see Mr Crawford out, dear. I wouldn’t mind a cuppa, though.’
Ada Daventry looked her husband up and down. She had thought him quite a catch when she married him; she had, after all, buried two husbands who hadn’t quite come up to snuff, so she thought she knew what was what. But, money or no money, he looked a poor thing next to Crawford, pigeon-chested, belly out to who-knew-where. But still, at least no one else would want him. She made up her mind. ‘I’ll get the kettle put on,’ she announced and swept out of the room.
Crawford loomed over Daventry, taking advantage of the man’s naturally cowed condition after the arrival of his wife. ‘You have a lovely wife, there, Mr Daventry. A nice armful. I don’t expect you would ever need to look elsewhere.’
Daventry gulped and eased his collar.
‘So I don’t expect that you ever had to visit Alice Groves or any of her fallen sisters in a … professional capacity. So you wouldn’t know if she had a client list or anything similar.’
‘Client list?’ Daventry shook his head. ‘What’s one of those?’
Crawford smiled and patted the man’s arm in a friendly fashion and almost knocked him flying. ‘I’m sure I can’t imagine,’ he said.
Daventry ushered him down the hall and opened the front door. He looked over his shoulder but there was no sign of his wife, just the muffled sound of a good haranguing coming from beyond the baize door. He lowered his voice even so. ‘I should talk to that bloke upstairs at number fourteen,’ he said. ‘I have reason to believe he was getting a free one out of Alice.’ He looked startled as he realized what he had said. ‘Not that I have any way of knowing it was free … or whether she …’
Crawford looked at him with his head on one side. It was a similar view to the last one a worm has when the blackbird has it in its sights.
The door slammed and, chuckling, Adam Crawford walked down Firtree Road, heading for Storey’s Yard.
Edmund Reid rather enjoyed trains. So much of his life had been lived at the pitch of high drama, whether it was a ballooning escapade, a magic show or a solo performance as a tenor – only once, on a very memorable occasion, all three at once – or the cut and thrust of being a senior policeman in the largest and arguably most crime-ridden city in the world. Being taken somewhere by a snorting, steam-belching behemoth at the engine’s own pace and on a route he couldn’t change was really rather soothing. He disliked Victoria station and had arrived almost at the moment of his train’s departure. He had balanced the spending time at the building site which Victoria always seemed to be but with a smooth journey, against the airy delights of St Pancras and the journey from hell with a change at Tilbury and Victoria, and speed won hands down. And he had made the right choice. Apart from a drop in steam pressure at Faversham, the journey was faultless and he was ready for anything when he alighted at Canterbury East.
The station was surprisingly busy for a mid-morning, but he quickly learned from the lugubrious porter that it was Market Day, and to be expected. This also, for reasons which Reid could not quite fathom, explained the complete lack of any cabs for hire. And in any event, the porter told him, there were at least six houses called The Limes in Canterbury; didn’t he have a street as well?
‘I just have “The Limes”,’ Reid said. ‘The name of the family is Barker, if that helps.’
‘Oh, glory be!’ The porter actually smiled and it looked as if it hurt him. ‘That bastard. Well, good luck to you, sir, that’s all I can say.’ He suddenly looked perturbed, far closer to his normal expression. ‘I’m assuming you’re not a friend of his, as you don’t know where he lives, and all.’
‘I just have some business,’ Reid said cagily.
‘Lor’ love you,’ the porter said. ‘Count your fingers when you’ve shook hands with that one. As crooked a man as ever walked, is Mr William Barker.’ He sucked his teeth and looked thoughtful. ‘Wife’s a nice woman, though. Daughter is a bit of an eyeful an’ all, but she’s not been seen round here a good while. They say there’s a scandal there, but I wouldn’t know anything about it.’
Reid loved to hear that phrase. It usually meant he was about to hear everything, with knobs on. It was just a case of deciding which knobs were genuine and which were embroidery.
‘Scandal? I hadn’t heard that.’ He extracted a half crown from the watch pocket of his waistcoat and twirled it in his fingers.
‘I got this from my missus, mind,’ the porter said, upending his trolley and leaning on the handles, ready for a chinwag. ‘She goes to the Mothers’ Meeting at the Methodists once a week. Not that we’re Methodists, mind.’ He was anxious to make sure Reid made no judgements which might cause the coin to dive back into his pocket. ‘But they do the best cake.’
Reid nodded, smiling. Cake was important.
‘Anyway, according to the missus, who got it off the sister of the woman who does for Mrs Barker’s next-door neighbour …’
Reid held up his hand while he processed the information, then nodded for the man to continue.
‘According to her, there was an almighty bust-up, ooh, when would it be? Years ago, anyway, when the girl was about eighteen, just back from school in Switzerland.’
Reid was impressed. ‘I didn’t realize that the Barkers were in that league, financially,’ he said.
‘Lor’, yes,’ the porter said. ‘Like I say, crooked as a …’ He couldn’t think of a metaphor, so coughed and changed tack. ‘Been in Switzerland four years, she had, or thereabouts. Come home and I reckon she were up the spout.’
Reid’s eyebrows almost dislodged his hat.
‘What else would make her take off like that? Her ma, she was in a taking on, didn’t come out of the house for munfs, then she come out bit by bit and now, you’d hardly think they ever had a daughter.’
‘So, the girl has never been back?’ Reid checked.
‘Well, I never seen her and I see most people what come into town. But that don’t mean to say that she hasn’t come back some uvver way.’ The porter spoke in the tones of one who could imagine no other way.
‘Where is their house?’ It was the final piece of information that he needed.
‘Not far,’ said the porter. ‘Out of here, turn left and it’s about the fifth or sixth on the right. Big place. Trees in the front.’
‘Limes?’ Reid liked precision in his directions.
‘Monkey puzzles, mainly,’ the porter said. ‘But you can’t call a house Monkey Puzzle, could ya? Be stupid, that.’
‘Well, thank you very much,’ Reid said, and flipped the coin in the air. The porter held out his hand to catch it, but it never arrived in his palm. He looked up, wonderingly, into the sky as Reid went out of there and turned left.
The Limes was easy to pick out from among its fellows. It had been a large house to start with, built in that most elegant of times, the Georgian period. Since then, many hands had wrought havoc to its beautiful lines, with gargoyles, dragon finials and extended wings aplenty. Edmund Reid judged homes by their comfort as a rule and not by their appearance, but The Limes had jangled his nerves even before he rang the doorbell.
A neat little maid with a smart white cap on her smoothed-back hair opened the door and stood there, looking helpful.
‘I would like to speak to Mr and Mrs Barker, if I may?’ Reid doffed his hat and gave her his best smile.
She gave him her best smile back. ‘Who should I say is calling?’ she asked politely.
Reid hesitated. He had always disliked people who clung to ranks and prefixes long after the event, but he sensed that in this case, it wouldn’t hurt. ‘Tell them Inspector Reid, Scotland Yard,’ he said.
The girl’s eyes widened and she looked alarmed but she collected herself enough to ask him in. ‘If you’ll just wait in here, sir,’ she said, opening a door immediately inside the front porch. It was clearly a room for putting visitors of dubious standing in, neat but not too comfortable, the chairs just one step up from the arse-numbing wooden ones in the hall. Reid walked around the room, looking at the pictures hanging on cords from the rail. They were all fakes of one kind or another – they might fool some people, but Reid knew that a businessman in a dodgy mucked-up house near a station had never had an ancestor painted by Gainsborough, no matter what the signature said.
He had his head on one side trying to work out which of the many forgers he had collared over the years had turned it out when the door behind him opened and a man stood there, looking aggressive.
Reid doffed his hat once more. ‘Mr Barker?’ he asked.
‘Who’s asking?’ The tone was cultured, but it overlaid something Reid struggled for a moment to place; then it came to him. Mile End Waste, or he was a Dutchman.
‘My name is Edmund Reid. I used to be a police inspector at Scotland Yard and I have been asked by the Herne Bay police to come and speak to you about your daughter.’
Barker was making popping noises, like a saucepan coming to the boil, but Reid talked over him; it was the only way. Barker finally got his tongue under control and rapped out, ‘I have no daughter.’
‘I do understand that there was a falling out of some kind,’ Reid said, again speaking a little louder than normal to cover Barker’s fury. ‘I am not here to judge. Sadly, I believe that your daughter was found dead last Saturday – I found her, in fact, on the beach – and I don’t think you would like her to have a pauper’s unmarked grave, surely, would you, Mr Barker?’
If Barker cared, it was hard to tell. ‘Dead?’ he asked. He might as well have been speaking of the rather seedy-looking aspidistra in the window. ‘How do you know it is Emmeline? And why are you working for the Herne Bay police?’ The man took a step forward and raised a finger, pointing it in Reid’s face. ‘I think you are a blackguard, sir, that’s what I think.’
Reid kept his composure; it was what he did, whatever the circumstances. ‘I’m not sure what you think I have to gain by any imposture,’ he said coolly. ‘I believe that your daughter is dead because of investigations I have carried out, but more especially because that picture over there …’
Barker spun round. He had specifically told his wife to remove all images of Emmeline, but she had clearly disobeyed. He would take that up with her later.
‘… is, allowing for the ravages of time, sand, weather and – I hesitate to mention it, but you are clearly a man who speaks his mind – crustacea, the same woman who I saw on the beach. Dead.’
The door behind him opened and a little woman bustled in, smiling. They didn’t have many visitors these days and she had heard voices. She advanced with her hand outstretched. ‘Good morning,’ she said, beaming. ‘I am Mrs Barker. Did I hear you say “dead”? Are you collecting for something? Cavalry horses? Something of that nature. Because I must tell you that Mr Barker and I don’t believe in giving to charity.’
The smile tightened a little as she spoke and Reid, from having been surprised to find her so jolly bearing in mind that she lived with Mr Barker, saw that she was hanging on to her persona by an unravelling thread. He bit back his retort and prepared to break it to her gently, but her husband had no such qualms.
‘This gentleman was just going,’ he snapped. ‘He’s just dropped by to tell us Emmeline is dead, so he can leave now. He has told us all we need to know.’
The woman’s face crumpled and she turned to Reid, the tears spilling over the reddened lids and falling down her cheeks. They were not the first tears she had cried that day, Reid could tell, and they wouldn’t be the last. She grabbed his arm with both hands and sagged towards him.
‘Dead?’ she whispered. ‘Dead? Emmeline? How can that be? She was so … so young.’
Barker stepped forward and pulled her away from Reid’s sheltering arm, giving her a shake as one would a recalcitrant child. ‘She was found on a beach,’ he said. ‘As I think I told you when I showed her the door, she was no better than she should be and would come to a bad end. And now she has, so I don’t see how our situation is any different now than how it was then.’ He shook her again. ‘Stop crying, woman. I thought I had forbidden it.’
‘But … but William.’ She turned and clawed at his coat. ‘Our baby. Emmeline. She’s dead. How can you not care?’
‘Take hold of yourself, woman,’ Barker snarled. ‘Compose yourself while I see this gentleman out.’ He pushed her on to one of the only semi-padded chairs and stepped round Reid to the door, opening it wide. ‘This way, please, Mr Reid, if that is indeed your name.’
Reid looked at him as he would look at dogshit on his shoe. ‘You will be sorry you behaved like that, Mr Barker,’ he said in a tight monotone. ‘I don’t know what your business is, but I will find out. You will see your clients drop away, your income dwindle, your standing in this town drop lower than even you deserve. You are a pig, sir, and nothing will change that. I came here today ready to comfort grieving parents. Instead, what I have seen has sickened me more than I can say.’ He sighed. ‘I know that you will now proceed to take your anger out on your wife. But I would like you to know that if your wife is not seen, safe and well, on the streets of Canterbury at least once a day from now on, you will have police on your doorstep day and night. If she has anywhere to go, I hope she goes there.’ He took a deep breath, because he was not usually a profane man. ‘I hope to God that you rot in hell.’ And he swept out.
In the garden, he found he was trembling. Edmund Reid had faced down gangs outnumbering him six to one, each one of them seeming to be twice his height and girth and half his age. But no confrontation had upset him as much as this one with William Barker. Since his wife had died, he had never really known what he thought about God, heaven and man’s immortal soul. But he knew that in William Barker, he had smelt the stench of sulphur; the man was evil, through and through.
‘Mr Reid?’ A small voice cut through his thoughts. ‘Mr Reid? Are you quite well?’
He turned and, coming across the lawn, throwing a shawl around her shoulders, came Mrs Barker, with tear streaks on her cheeks. She was looking behind her as if the hounds of hell were baying at her heels, as indeed, in a way, they were.
‘Mrs Barker!’ He hurried towards her. ‘Should you … should you be out here?’
‘Mr Reid,’ she said, with a sad smile. ‘I shouldn’t be here, in this house, at all. My husband hates me; I gave birth to Emmeline, you see, and that makes me complicit in her wrongdoing.’ She patted his hand as if he needed comfort. ‘He alienated all my friends and family within months of our marriage, so I have nowhere else to go. Don’t worry, Mr Reid; he doesn’t often use physical violence. It is usually as you saw it today, a little rough handling, some rough speech.’
‘But that’s too much,’ Reid said. ‘There should be none of either.’ He remembered his wife, the quiet evenings they had spent, the companionable walks, the little holidays, their plans to retire to Kent. He looked down at the little woman, standing there so resigned and could have wept.
‘William was brought up in poverty in the East End, Mr Reid,’ she said. ‘He thinks that money is enough for anyone. He has forgotten that people matter. Even himself.’
Reid patted himself on the back. He hadn’t lost his touch.
‘He sent Emmeline to all the best schools, then was surprised when she wanted to go on learning. She applied to King’s College and was so excited when she heard she had got in.’ She clasped her hands and looked down, telling the story to herself as much as to Reid. ‘She came running into the breakfast room with the letter, waving it in the air and twirling round and round. I remember her curls flying, her feet dancing. Even William had to smile.’
Her face glowed beneath the tears, then crumpled again.
‘That was the last day she spent under our roof. As soon as William discovered what she was planning, he threw her out, with just the clothes on her back.’
Reid frowned. ‘The rumour in town …’ Then he decided to not share the rest of the gossip.
‘Oh, don’t worry about that, Mr Reid,’ she said. ‘I started that rumour myself. Everyone could understand that, you see. A daughter in the family way being shown the door; well, there is more than one very respectable house in this very street where that happened. No, God forgive me, but I didn’t want people to look down on William, for his arrant stupidity and pigheadedness. He should have been proud of our girl.’ She buried her head in her hands and Reid let her cry. He knew that the slightest touch, a note of sympathy in his voice and she would be lost in her misery, perhaps for ever. He waited patiently and in a while, she drew a huge breath and carried on.
‘I managed to see her twice. Once when I said I was going up to town to see my dentist, the other to see my doctor.’
‘Are you ill?’ Reid was concerned.
‘No, amazingly, not. But William chooses my clothes, so shopping was not something I could claim to be the reason. He would accompany me to the doctor if he could, to make sure … well, he made sure there were no marks when I said where I was going, so that was good for two reasons, not only because I was seeing Emmeline.’ She sniffed. ‘She was so happy. I had managed to get some money to her and she lived frugally. She was doing research into somesuch thing I didn’t really understand. But …’ – she turned back to the house, anxious to be gone – ‘but she was happy, Mr Reid. She wasn’t … well, she hadn’t fallen, had she? She wasn’t dead on the beach because she had fallen?’
Reid patted her arm. ‘No, Mrs Barker. She was still doing her research. We don’t know who killed her, or why. But we will. I promise you. Just one more thing. I can tell you want to go back inside.’
‘Need to, Mr Reid, not want.’ She was resigned, and that was more heartbreaking than the tears.
‘But before you go, do you know if she had a friend in London, a special friend?’
‘A man, you mean?’ Mrs Barker had not wanted a man for her daughter. She had fallen in love, and look where that had landed her.
‘Or a woman. Just someone we can talk to.’
‘She lived … the last time we spoke, she lived in a mews, just off the Strand. I can’t remember the name …’ She put a hand to her forehead. ‘You will think badly of me, Mr Reid, but I say I can scarcely remember my name some days. It was … umm … something to do with trees … and for some reason, I remember it was number fifteen; it was my mother’s birthday, that’s probably why.’ She twisted her hands together and looked up at him desperately.
Reid racked his encyclopaedic knowledge of minor London streets. ‘Not Walnut Mews?’ he asked hopefully.
‘That’s the one! Goodness, Mr Reid, that is quite extraordinary.’
‘I know it,’ he said. He didn’t tell her it was because it had been the scene of more violence and robbery than virtually any other street in the area, though it was too late to worry her now. ‘The friend’s name, can you remember?’
‘Oh, yes! What a sweet girl. Her name is Marjy.’
Reid looked at her, eyebrows raised, waiting for the rest.
‘I’m afraid I don’t remember the rest.’
‘Never mind, Mrs Barker,’ he said softly. She turned to go. ‘Keep safe,’ he whispered, as he always whispered forlorn hopes.
Jacob Lawrenson was at home that Tuesday afternoon, which told Adam Crawford a lot. On questioning, it turned out he was a gas mantle repairer, currently not employed as there had been an unprecedented lull in breakages of gas mantles in the immediate area. For medical reasons which he preferred not to specify, he couldn’t travel.
‘You could travel downstairs, though, or so I understand?’ Crawford remarked.
‘Downstairs?’ Lawrenson looked furtive.
‘Downstairs as far as Alice Groves’s apartment, perhaps.’
Lawrenson drew himself up and looked pompous. ‘I scarcely knew the woman,’ he said. ‘Anyone will tell you that.’ He dropped his voice, though there was no one else there. ‘She was on the game, you know. No better than she should be. Brought the neighbourhood down, in my opinion.’
‘I do know that, Mr Lawrenson, and you know that I do. But please, don’t come the injured neighbour with me. I have it on good authority that you and Alice were more than passing acquaintances. In fact, I have it on very good authority that you were indulging in what we could call her stock-in-trade – and for nothing. Is that so?’ Crawford smiled. ‘Is there a Mrs Lawrenson, by the way?’
‘Yes, there certainly is!’ Lawrenson was outraged. ‘And I will have you know, we are very active in that department. Anyone will tell you that.’
‘Good grief!’ Crawford stepped back. ‘Wherever do you do it, Mr Lawrenson, that anyone will tell me that?’
‘Well.’ Lawrenson was deflated. ‘Not literally. But everyone knows that me and my Tilly get on like a house on fire.’
‘I know that kind of marriage,’ Crawford said knowingly. ‘Lots of heat and flames and people running about screaming. I hope we didn’t disturb her the other night, what with the shouting and such.’ He sighed and plumped down into an armchair, to the surprise of a sleeping cat. ‘Sorry.’ Crawford was fond of animals. ‘I’m sure she will be all right.’ The cat sat on the table, looking balefully at Crawford, its tail in the butter.
Lawrenson seemed to run out of steam. ‘All right, all right,’ he said. ‘Tilly left me about a year ago. I have … I have rather special needs, if you must know, which Tilly was not willing to provide. Alice was good enough to …’ He stared at Crawford, not knowing how to go on.
‘Step into the breach?’ Crawford offered.
‘If you like.’ Lawrenson relaxed. This copper might look wet behind the ears, but he seemed to understand life. ‘She didn’t mind it when I asked her to—’
Crawford held up his hand. ‘No need for details, Mr Lawrenson, really there isn’t. I was wondering, though, whether you knew any of her other clients? Whether you ever met one of them, for instance, in the doorway or perhaps when you were even in her room.’
‘’Ere!’ Lawrenson was outraged. ‘There was none of that muck going on, if you please! It was strictly her and me, in the dark for preference.’ He folded his arms and looked aggrieved. ‘I was brought up a Methodist, you know. The idea!’
‘I wasn’t suggesting anything untoward, Mr Lawrenson,’ Crawford said, trying not to smile. He couldn’t blame the man for wanting to keep his peccadilloes to himself. What he could see of them through his clothes was unpleasant enough. ‘I simply wondered whether … well, for the sake of an example, did you ever happen to be looking out of your window when Alice had visitors?’
Lawrenson was sulking. ‘I might of.’
‘And?’
‘No good asking me who they were. You can see for yourself. All you get from up here is the top of folks’ heads. A few bald ones. The rest had hair. And that’s all I can tell you.’ And indeed it was. Lawrenson shut his mouth like a trap, the cat rolled over and licked its bum and Adam Crawford saw himself out.