4

The King of Nowhere

 

“Well, it could be Rosa Ritchie,” agreed Gover. “But it’s not going to be easy to get an identification. Not after all that time in the open.”

“Fingerprints?”

“Had she got a record? I never heard of it.”

“Clothes? Teeth?”

“Teeth would be best. Or you might pick up a print or two from her flat. Have you located that yet?”

“It’s a couple of rooms in Corum Street. I haven’t had time to go down there yet. The trouble is, she wasn’t living alone, she shared with another girl. Who’s probably relet them by now.”

“But if Rosa didn’t turn up one evening, why didn’t the other girl report–” Gover stopped. “No, of course. If she shared rooms with Rosa she’d know about her private life. She’d assume Rosa had gone across to France with her husband.”

“Which she may have done.”

“She didn’t go with him,” said Gover. He waited for a moment or two while his careful mind sorted it all out.

“Monk – if it was Monk – crossed alone. He left Victoria by the night train. There was a bad slip-up over that. A very bad slip. The stopper wasn’t put on at Newhaven until the next morning. Someone lost his job over that. But that didn’t bring Monk back. A railway detective and a customs man both swear it was Monk. He wasn’t disguised.”

“He took a risk.”

“Well, it came off. That’s the thing about risks. If they come off, they’re good ones. And we checked the tickets. There was one return ticket, bought over the counter, for cash, that day at a big travel agency in the Strand. The outward half was used, the inward half’s never been handed in. Which means that someone went to France six weeks ago and hasn’t come back yet.”

“If it was Monk, why take a return?”

“If you’re pretending to be a tourist, what else would you take?” Gover paused again. “It’s not conclusive, I agree. The ticket’s valid for three months. The owner may still turn out to be an absent-minded professor, with friends in Paris. All the same, I think it was Monk.”

“Yes,” said Petrella.

“But I don’t think he took Rosa with him. And what’s more, I don’t think he meant to. He had to see her. She was his banker. She’d got all his money. Money she’d been slowly realizing from the proceeds of his jewel thefts, which they’d stowed away somewhere.”

“Yes,” said Petrella. Another tiny little piece fell into place. “But why would he meet her beside a reservoir in North London?”

“I’ve no idea,” said Gover. “And you ought to know better than to ask. You can’t answer detailed questions at this stage. All we can get at is the outline. Anyway – they do meet there. And they quarrel. And he shoots her. Now why would he do that?”

Petrella said, “Because she wanted to go with him. And it didn’t fit in with his plans.”

“Or because he’d heard that she’d been carrying on with his Number Two, Boot Howton?”

“Or because she didn’t produce enough money, and he thought she’d been cheating him?”

“Or for all three reasons. Or for no reason at all. A man like Monk, fresh out of prison, no sleep for two days, a gun in his hand. He wouldn’t want a lot of reason, would he?”

Petrella agreed. It had been a constant surprise to him, the totally inadequate reasons for which people killed other people.

“There are two ways of getting at this,” said Gover. “I’m assuming, for the moment, that the woman is Rosa. We can plug away at the girl who shared the flat – what’s her name, by the way?”

“A Mrs Jean Fraser.”

“Well, you can look after her. You’re the right age for girls. Then there’s Boot and the boys. Monk must have made contact with them after he got out, don’t you think? He had to get the gun from somewhere. I’d better have a word with them.”

“You don’t think,” said Petrella, “that we’d better swap jobs. You take Jean, and leave the boys to me?”

“Certainly not,” said Gover. “I’m a quiet man. I’ll take the safe job. But you might see if you can find out for me where they hang out.”

Next morning Petrella did some telephoning and managed to catch Detective Sergeant Luard of S Division. Bill Luard, a Cornishman, had occupied the next-door cubicle to Petrella at recruit training school, and they had liked each other and had kept up with each other, as far as their jobs allowed.

This was a piece of luck for Petrella, since detective officers are normally as jealous as tipsters of their private contacts and sources of information.

“See you tonight, when I come off duty,” said Luard. “The room over Pino’s at King’s Cross. Remember, I took you there once? Don’t get there before eight. If I’m not there, wait outside.”

At a quarter past eight, Petrella hopped off the trolley bus at the stop under the arch and took his bearings.

Pino’s lay at the blind end of Hope Street. It had net curtains in the windows. One step down from the pavement brought you into a room with two cross-legged bamboo tables, a counter and a tea urn. Not even the oldest regular could remember anyone ever being served from the tea urn, which was thought to be strictly for ornament. Upstairs there was a larger room and this was apt to be full at all hours of the day, for Pino, who derived his name from his birthplace in the Philippine Islands, brewed strong tea and excellent coffee, and his wife, who was as black as he was, was a good cook.

When Petrella poked his head round the door, all conversation ceased until Luard spotted him, jumped to his feet, and came across. Then the conversation switched on again where it had left off. For Pino’s was a club, and in its way as exclusive as the Athenaeum. More so, really. It might have tolerated a bishop, but no Conservative Member of Parliament would have got past the tea urn.

“Come on,” said Luard. “Coffee, Pino. Let’s take this table, then we can talk.” Two men in oily denim overalls got up and said they were going anyway, and Petrella squeezed in onto the wooden bench beside Luard.

“What are you up to now, Patrick?”

Petrella explained, as well as he could, uneasily aware that an old woman in black was drinking in every word he said.

“Don’t worry about Kate. She’s deaf,” said Luard. “Aren’t you?” he bellowed suddenly. The old woman bobbed and smiled.

“I can give you what you want. In fact, I’ll be glad to. It’s about time those boys were shaken down. They’ve been getting too big for their boots lately. You know it used to be Monk Ritchie’s crowd. When he and Meister ran it, it was almost respectable. Housebreaking, shopbreaking. That sort of thing.”

It didn’t sound very respectable, but Petrella knew what Luard meant.

“Now Meister’s gone up for that banknote job and Monk’s out of the country, Boot Howton’s taken it over. It’s a real shower now, I promise you.”

“Intimidation?”

“I suppose you could call stamping on people’s faces intimidation,” agreed Luard. “Here comes the coffee.”

“Who else is in it? Ritzy Moritz I’ve met.”

“It varies. The main characters are Moritz, Jacko and ‘Curly’ Thompson. Howton runs it. He’s the one that makes it tick. When he goes down – and that can’t be too soon as far as we’re concerned – it’ll fall to the ground.”

“Until someone picks it up again,” said Petrella. Criminals were part of his job, but criminals like Howton and Moritz and Jacko filled his soul with the weariness of deep disgust. Corner boys of crime, men without any purpose beyond making money and avoiding work, men who lived from prison sentence to prison sentence, causing the maximum of trouble, inside and outside, and doing no good to anyone, least of all to themselves.

“–enjoyed your coffee?” said Luard.

“It’s first class,” said Petrella. “I’m sorry, I was just thinking. Where do they hang out now?”

“You’ll find them, any evening, in the back room of a pub called the King of Nowhere.”

“King of Nowhere?”

“In Parrock Street, Camden Town. Got a back entrance on the canal, so I’m told. You want to watch that when you go after them.”

“I’ll tell Gover about it,” said Petrella.

“Nothing to do with me, really,” said Luard. “But what’s it all about?”

“You remember that woman we found up on the reservoir?”

“Yes. I saw something about it. Suicide, wasn’t it?”

“It wasn’t suicide,” said Petrella. “And it could be Rosa Ritchie – Monk’s wife. We’re not sure yet.”

Luard whistled as he worked out the implications of this.

“What do you think?” he said. “Did Monk knock her off, because she’d been going with Howton, or did Howton and the boys knock her off to stop her telling Monk what she’d been up to, or did they all do it together, because her accounts wouldn’t add up?”

“We’d thought of all those,” said Petrella. “And it could be any of them. But, since Monk’s not available, we’ve got to get what we can out of his friends.”

“The only way you’ll get anything out of them’s with a big sharp tin opener,” said Luard. “You’ll have to excuse me now. My boyfriend’s turned up.”

Petrella saw a little man looking round the edge of the door and guessed that it would be the informer whom Luard had arranged to meet.

“Thanks for everything,” he said. “Can I pay for my coffee?”

“It’s on the house.”

 

“Oyez, oyez, oyez,” said the Highside coroner’s officer severely, addressing himself to an audience which consisted of Inspector Gover, Dr Summerson, Detective Sergeant Petrella, Sergeant Oddson, a junior reporter from the Highside Mercury, and an old man connected with the next case. “All manner of persons who have anything to do before the queen’s coroner for this borough draw near and give your attendance.”

Everyone sat down. The Highside coroner, Mr Pearly, a twinkling little man, his natural gaiety undimmed by twenty years of looking upon death, nodded to his old friend Dr Summerson and waved to his officer, who whisked Sergeant Oddson into the box where he told the court that he was a Detective Sergeant in the Photographic Section at New Scotland Yard and that he wished to produce and identify four photographs, two general photographs of the Binford Park Reservoir and two of a body recently found there.

The coroner examined the photographs closely and said he thought they were very good. Sergeant Oddson looked gratified and made way for Dr Summerson.

The coroner, seeing him in the box, apparently forgot that he had waved to him a short time before and said, in tones of deep surprise, “You are Ian Monteith Summerson, a registered medical practitioner and a pathologist at Greys Hospital?”

Dr Summerson admitted that he was.

“And you performed an autopsy upon the deceased woman?”

Dr Summerson admitted this, too.

“All I shall ask you, at this juncture, Dr Summerson, is the cause of death.”

“The cause of death,” said Dr Summerson, “was a revolver bullet of .455 caliber, fired at very close range, which entered the base of the heart bag, and lodged in the spinal column.”

The single reporter nearly swallowed the rubber off the end of his pencil as it dawned on him that he was in possession of an exclusive and undoubted scoop. A lot of people had known about the discovery of a woman at the reservoir but it had been generally supposed that she had died of exposure.

He bolted for the door, collecting a disapproving glance from the coroner’s officer as he went.

Gover was already in the box.

“You are Charles Gover, a detective chief inspector in Q Division and you are in charge of the police inquiries into this case?”

“That’s right, sir.”

“Have you concluded your inquiries?”

“No, sir.”

“I understand that it will assist you if I adjourn this case.”

“Yes, sir.”

Mr Pearly looked round happily at the clean coloured glass of the windows, at the polished woodwork, at the spotless tiles of the floor, at the gleaming brass of the handrail in front of him, and addressed the empty benches in exactly the same courteous, dispassionate tones that he would have used had they been full, as they sometimes were, of gaping press and public.

“This is an inquiry,” he said, “into the death of a woman unknown, aged about thirty-five years, found dead at Binford Park Reservoir, the property of the Metropolitan Water Board. I understand that the circumstances in which she was found may give rise to further proceedings in another court and I shall accordingly order that this inquest stand adjourned for fifteen days – that is, until November 23rd.”

“Twenty-third’s a Friday,” said the coroner’s officer.

“Very well then, until November 27th. You won’t mind a few more days, Inspector.”

“I’m much obliged,” said Inspector Gover.

In the lobby of the court, Petrella found an opportunity of passing on Luard’s message.

“King of Nowhere,” said Gover. “Yes. I remember it, when I was in S. Nice little place. On the canal. I heard it’d changed hands, and gone down a bit lately.”

“If Howton & Co. are using it as a hideout,” said Petrella, “it must have sunk without a trace. Shall I come with you?”

“I expect I can manage,” said Gover. “Don’t want to frighten them. By the way, we’ve got a report from the laboratory on the clothes. I’d like you to check that against the retail list. If we get some idea where she did her shopping it might help.”

By nine o’clock that evening Petrella had had enough of retail lists.

“I believe,” he said to Gwilliam, “that she did it on purpose.”

Sergeant Gwilliam grunted. He was sitting with his own chair tilted back and his feet on the radiator and was reading the sports reports in the evening paper.

“As far as her clothes went, she seems deliberately to have chosen things that you can buy at any shop in London.”

“They’re saying now the Harlequins are the finest team in London. I don’t believe they’d look at the old London Welsh.”

“Her clothes are either all new or she washed them herself. Anyway there are no laundry marks or cleaners’ tabs. Even her shoes, Smithsons Super-wear! Do you know how many shops sell them? Sixty-four in the West Central district alone.”

“I remember,” said Gwilliam, “one Boxing Day match against the Harlequins. I had a very terrible hangover–”

The telephone clattered. Gwilliam picked it up. Started to speak. Then slammed it down, and said, “Trouble, now.”

“Where?” said Petrella. They were already moving.

“At a pub in Camden Town. Parrock Street.”

“The King of Nowhere?”

“That’s right,” said Gwilliam.

Detective Constable Cobley had appeared from the charge room.

“We’ll take the car nearest the entrance,” said Gwilliam. “Pile in all of you. I’ll drive.”

“That’s where Gover’s gone, didn’t you know?”

“Keep your hand on the siren,” said Gwilliam. “You all right, Tom?”

“Fine,” said Cobley. His huge body was wedged in the back of the police tender, which was already rocking as Gwilliam steadily gathered speed.

They passed the Old Mother Red Cap, at the corner of Camden High Street, took an optimistic view of the traffic lights, and beat it for fifty yards along the main road, then right, and right again into Parrock Street.

The symptoms of trouble were evident. A few men outside a door and an apprehensive crowd, mostly boys and women, on the pavement opposite.

A desultory free-for-all seemed to be going on inside, and through the steamed-up glass of the front window Petrella thought he could see the blue of a police uniform.

“There’s a back entrance,” he said, “by the canal. The turning at the end of the street. I’ll go round.”

“All right,” said Gwilliam. He put his shoulder to the front door and pushed it open. Petrella had time to see this, then he was running, Cobley with him.

“Down here,” he said.

It was a narrow alley, ending in high gates, with some sign painted on them. Cobley made a back, hoisted Petrella up, and was pulled up in turn. They dropped into a littered yard.

“The canal bank’s through here somewhere,” said Petrella. He wished he had brought his torch.

“Look out you don’t fall in then,” said Cobley. He was less excited than Petrella. They felt their way along the narrow cinder path. “It’s the sixth house along. I counted.”

Suddenly they were aware that figures were moving, in the dark, ahead of them, but away from them.

Things happened then, in no sort of order. Petrella jumped forward, felt an opponent, and grabbed him. As he grabbed, he slipped, and they came down together in a heap. Someone then stepped on both of them. Cobley, by the weight of him.

There was a pounding of footsteps ahead and a muffled roar as action was joined farther up the bank. Then the toe of a boot caught Petrella squarely in the middle of the forehead and the next thing he knew was that he was on his hands and knees, in the darkness, being sick.

As the nausea passed, he felt hands under his arms lifting him up.

“Are you all right, Sergeant?”

“What’s happened?” said Petrella. He found that he could just stand.

“Two of ’em,” said Cobley. “One of ’em knocked you cold. I pitched the other one into the canal. Just to see if he could swim.”

“I’m all right now,” said Petrella. The world around him was steadying, and if he concentrated he could focus. “Did he?” he added.

“Did he what?”

“Swim.”

“I’m afraid so. I heard someone get out the other side. Your man scarpered too.”

“We’d better go in now,” said Petrella. The particular stable door they had come to lock seemed to have been kicked in their faces, but they might as well finish the job.

Cobley found the gate and pushed it open. They were in a dark, stone-paved enclosure, which smelt of beer. Ahead of them was more darkness, lit by a dim internal light. A long way away a loud argument was going on, and Petrella recognized Gwilliam’s voice.

“The back door’s open, Sergeant,” said Cobley softly. He touched it with his foot and it swung wide. They could see the shadowy outlines of a room, lit by a dying coal fire.

“Try the light,” said Petrella.

There came a booming from the middle distance.

“I don’t care whether it’s a private room or not.” It was Gwilliam’s voice. “Will you open that door or do I kick it down?”

“It’s all right, Dai,” shouted Petrella. “Don’t wreck the place. It’s too late. They’ve gone.”

Then two things happened. Cobley, on their side, found the room switch and turned on the light. From the other side, Sergeant Gwilliam put his broad foot to the door and kicked the lock out. The door burst inwards, narrowly missing Petrella.

In the light they saw a shabby parlour, in disorder, furniture overturned and glass broken; and Detective Inspector Gover lying in the middle of the worn carpet, his head at an awkward angle, pillowed on a damp, dark patch of his own still-running blood.