Sepulchre Street, page 18
‘And that’s what matters,’ Jacob said heavily.
‘You’re a crime correspondent, not some idiot on a soapbox at Hyde Park Corner.’
‘That’s your final word?’
‘Yes. Leave it there. Regarding Mrs de Villiers – forget you ever heard her name. As far as the Clarion is concerned, she no longer exists.’
18
‘My sincere condolences.’ Laurent spoke in a hushed voice. His eyelids were lowered as he leaned back in his leather chair. ‘I’m truly sorry.’
Joe Postles twitched. His face was drained of colour. ‘Sorry won’t bring my brother back.’
‘No.’
They were in Laurent’s office. The club manager lifted a crystal decanter and poured two generous measures of cognac into a pair of tumblers. His big brown eyes were misty with sentiment.
‘Here’s to Sammy. He was a good man, Joe.’
The little man rubbed his wrist before lifting his glass. Rachel had cracked a bone and it hadn’t stopped hurting.
‘The best.’
‘We all like a tipple now and then,’ Laurent savoured the tang. He’d abandoned any pretence at a French accent. ‘With Sammy, it was different. He needed the stuff, couldn’t manage without it. The drink made him desperate for money. Trouble was, it loosened his tongue.’
Joe wiped his mouth and said in a muffled voice, ‘He couldn’t help it!’
‘We all make choices, Joe.’
‘Easy for you to say. You weren’t asked to go to the morgue and look at…’
‘Nobody should have to do that,’ Laurent interrupted. ‘Not for their little brother. It’s not fair. But then, life isn’t fair, Joe. We all know that.’
‘Sammy was a fine-looking boy,’ Joe muttered. ‘But they made such a mess of him with the razor…’ He choked back a sob.
Laurent gazed at the ceiling. Anything to avoid the little man’s distress. ‘None of us wants any unpleasantness.’
‘It was murder, plain and simple!’ Joe burst out. ‘There wasn’t no need to kill him! If only Ambrose would’ve warned Sammy, he’d have been sure to—’
‘Look, Joe, you’ve got to be reasonable. That isn’t how these things work. You’ve been around a long time, you know better than me. Nobody likes a copper’s nark.’
‘Sammy never blabbed to the police, not ever!’
‘He talked to that kid who scribbles for the newspaper, didn’t he?’
Joe scowled but said nothing. Laurent finished his brandy.
‘Stool pigeon, see?’
‘Sammy was no stool pigeon.’
‘Come on, Joe, there’s no getting away from what he did.’
‘Whatever you say, Ambrose didn’t have to…’
‘Look, Joe. That’s enough. You know I liked Sammy, everyone did. But he couldn’t keep his trap shut, that’s what did for him.’ Laurent leaned back in his chair. ‘Put yourself in the guvnor’s shoes.’
‘That piece of shit!’
‘Hey!’ Laurent said sharply. ‘Show some respect. Remember who pays your wages. And your ma’s rent. If the guvnor doesn’t crack down on a stool pigeon, people will start taking liberties. Sure as night follows day.’
‘But…’
Laurent banged his fist on the desk. ‘Listen to me. It was bad enough that the journo got away and Bob Earlam took a hell of a beating. The guvnor couldn’t simply smack Sammy’s legs and tell him not to be a naughty boy. People would say he’s gone soft in his old age, those years out of England have been the ruin of him. He had to make an example of Sammy. If not, who knows where we would all have been? You’ve got to have discipline.’
Joe was sullen. ‘He didn’t need to slash him to ribbons.’
‘Look, Joe, I said I’m sorry. It wasn’t personal. Monsieur Ambrose told me to give you this.’
Opening a drawer in the desk, he pulled out a packet.
‘It’s for your ma. Two hundred quid. So that Sammy can have a good send-off; it’s the least he deserves.’
‘Blood money,’ Joe said. ‘Stick it up your arse.’
‘No need to be coarse, Joe. This ain’t for you, but your ma, like I said. A personal gesture from the guvnor. Make sure she gets the cash. And the message.’
There was a long pause. Finally Joe reached across and took the packet. Laurent gave a nod of approval.
‘That’s better. Sensible.’
Joe made a scornful noise. Laurent frowned.
‘That’ll do, Joe. You need to mind your ps and qs, my friend. Now Monsieur Ambrose is back, he’s watching all of us like a hawk. And he’s not best pleased with you. Thinks you might have told Sammy not to act so stupid.’
‘It wasn’t my fault!’
‘He’s worried you might have blabbed too. I stuck up for you, put my neck on the block. Told him you’ve changed, that these days you keep your lips buttoned. So don’t let me down. You need to make him trust you again. And don’t even think about stepping out of line. That’s the way people get knocked over.’ Joe stood up. ‘Hey, where do you think you’re going?’
‘Taking the cash home, like you said.’
‘Ah, fair enough. There’s just one more thing.’
The little man turned at the door and gave him a dirty look. ‘What?’
‘Ambrose has a job for you. He needs a driver.’
‘You know what he can do.’
‘Don’t be silly, Joe. Remember who calls the tune.’ He paused but Joe said nothing. ‘Monsieur Ambrose, that’s who. Bob Earlam is still in hospital. Seems they may need to operate. One thing’s for sure, he won’t be driving anyone anywhere for a while. So you need to do the guvnor a favour.’
Joe frowned. ‘A favour?’
‘Yeah, it’s a chance for you to show willing. Prove where your loyalty lies.’
‘What is he after?’
‘You’re to drive him to Rye.’
‘Rye?’
‘East side of Sussex. On the coast.’
‘Oh, yeah, near Camber Sands? Me and Sammy went there years ago with our ma.’
‘That’s the place. Lovely spot in summer.’ Laurent opened his desk drawer and took out a slip of paper. ‘Take a gander at this.’
Joe peered at the words scribbled in capital letters. SEPULCHRE HOUSE, SEPULCHRE STREET, RYE.
‘Can you remember that, Joe?’
‘Nothing wrong with my memory,’ the little man said sullenly. ‘So what’s a sep–sepulchre, then?’
Laurent thought for a moment. ‘Kind of resting place.’
He tore the piece of paper into tiny fragments. ‘Now don’t you forget where you’re taking the guvnor.’
‘He’s only just got back to London. Why does he want to go to the seaside? I don’t get it.’
‘You don’t need to get it.’
‘I’m busy.’
‘Don’t mess me about, Joe. I’m a patient man, I’ve known you a long time, but there are limits, right? Fact of the matter is, Sammy broke the cardinal rule. He let the guvnor down. You don’t want to make the same mistake, do you?’ Laurent waited. ‘I mean, do you?’
‘No,’ Joe said sullenly.
‘There you are, then. Now, get off home. Give your ma the cash and get yourself a bit of shut-eye. You’ve got a fair old drive, to Rye and back. You don’t want to fall asleep at the wheel.’
‘He wants to go there today?’
‘Tonight,’ Laurent said. ‘He’s paying a call on an old friend. You need to sit tight till he’s done, then bring him straight back here. Set off at seven, aim to be back here before midnight. Put the guvnor’s car away in the garage and then forget you ever went out. Him and me were playing cards all evening. Right?’
‘What’s this all about?’
‘You don’t need to know.’
Joe Postles breathed out. ‘Come on, if I don’t have a clue what’s going on, I might put my foot in it. Without meaning to.’
Laurent deliberated. ‘This goes no further, understand?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘I’m serious. It’s just between me and you. Remember what happened to Sammy.’
‘I won’t forget that,’ the little man mumbled. ‘All right. Cross my heart and hope to die.’
‘That’s more like it.’ Laurent lowered his voice. ‘Lulu Dabo lives in Rye. The guvnor wants to pay her a surprise visit. Talk about old times, know what I mean?’
There was a long silence.
‘So it’s just like before?’ Joe asked.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Remember what happened to that blonde in Charlotte Street? Took up with some copper when she thought no one was watching? Ambrose shot her in the head.’
‘You’ve got a long memory,’ Laurent said.
Joe nodded.
Laurent took another sip of brandy. ‘Memories ain’t healthy. Some things are best forgotten, take it from me.’
‘So Ambrose is going to kill Lulu?’
‘I didn’t say that. He’s going to look her up, that’s all.’
‘And put a bullet through her brain?’
‘Take my advice,’ Laurent said. ‘Don’t ask no more questions. Actually, don’t think, that’s not healthy either. Just drive him where he wants to go. After last night, he’s like a cat on hot bricks. So do whatever he asks. No argy-bargy. Please, Joe, it’s the only way. One death in the family is enough. Ain’t it?’
*
Five minutes after leaving Chez Laurent, Joe Postles stepped into a telephone kiosk and dialled the office of the Clarion.
‘Jacob Flint?’ the girl on the switchboard repeated. ‘Who shall I say is calling?’
‘Joe Postles. He’ll talk to me.’
‘Hold the line… Putting you through now.’
‘Mr Flint?’
There was a pause. ‘I wasn’t expecting to hear from you, Joe. Not after last night.’
‘Yeah, sorry about that, Mr Flint. You know how things are.’
Jacob took a breath. ‘Bad news about Sammy.’
‘You heard what happened?’
‘Yeah, Ambrose killed him.’
A brief silence. ‘I’ve got something for you.’
‘Fire away.’
‘This woman you’re looking into.’
‘Kiki de Villiers, yes.’
‘Or Lulu Dabo.’
‘What about her?’
‘I know where she is today, if you’re interested.’
‘I’m interested, all right. Shall we meet?’
‘No time for that, Mr Flint.’
‘Can you give me the details over the telephone?’
‘It’s a place in Sussex. Town called Rye.’
‘Not Sepulchre House, by any chance? In Sepulchre Street.’
‘You’re ahead of me, Mr Flint.’
‘Does Ambrose have her address?’
‘Yeah, he does. And you know what that means.’
‘I do, Joe. Thanks for calling.’
A nervous cough. ‘No hard feelings after last night, eh?’
‘No hard feelings. And I’m truly sorry about your brother.’
‘Me too,’ Joe Postles said.
*
In his room on the first floor of the Hardwick Hotel, Duncalf sat on the edge of his bed. He wore gloves and was studying the contents of the folder from Major Whitlow. The buzz of a fly distracted him. He looked up and saw it scuttling along the cornice. The sound it made was as irritating as toothache. He needed peace and quiet when he was preparing to go to work, and he couldn’t tolerate any kind of interference.
Much of his life was spent in hotels. On arriving in London, he had taken a room with a view over Russell Square. As usual, he’d chosen one of the less imposing hotels on the square; although money was no object, fripperies like the winter gardens and Turkish baths to be found at the Imperial held no appeal for him. Nor did fine cuisine.
His choice was entirely practical. The Hardwick was large enough to function in an efficient fashion, modest enough not to attract clients it needed to fuss over. For Duncalf, small guest houses run by inquisitive landladies were only a last resort. He’d learned that lesson the hard way early in his career. One night, a blowsy woman who had flirted with him from the moment he booked bed and breakfast at her grubby establishment had burst into his bedroom wearing a wholly inadequate nightgown. At that very moment, he was loading his trusty Webley Mark VI revolver. Disposing of the woman and making sure that nobody connected him with her disappearance had caused an inordinate amount of trouble. All because he’d chosen a cheap billet and then omitted to lock his door. Mistakes never to be repeated.
The fly buzzed its way across the carpet towards him. He watched and waited, still as a statue, until it came within reach. In a swift and silent movement, he raised his foot and crushed the insect. After scraping the remains from the sole of his shoe, he tipped them into the wastepaper bin.
The small act of violence calmed him. Over the years, one or two people had presumed he was nerveless, but that wasn’t quite right. Unless the adrenaline flowed, you never achieved the best results. This task represented a challenge. The circumstances were far from ideal. He prided himself on careful preparation and regretted Major Whitlow’s insistence that the deed be done within a matter of hours. But you had to expect the unexpected, to be ready to adapt your plans at a moment’s notice. Inflexibility and reliance on lazy assumptions were hallmarks of a third-rate assassin, the sort who came to grief after two or three kills.
A seasoned professional had to trust to instinct. You could never anticipate everything, although taking pains over the preliminaries helped to minimise the risk of being confounded by a peculiar turn of events. All the same, doing a job in a rush increased the danger. Major Whitlow knew that as well as anyone. Duncalf had no idea what had forced the major’s hand – or should that be claw? – and he didn’t care. He’d never suffered from the curse of curiosity or been plagued by a roaming imagination. The secret of success lay in being single-minded and not fretting about what might have been. You had to play with the hand you were dealt.
He picked up the folder again and pored over its contents. He’d skimmed through them twice already, to fix the outline of the plan in his mind, but now he needed to memorise the key details. He had impressive powers of recall, matched by an ability to move on and forget. These qualities had stood him in good stead ever since he was eight years old. He’d finally returned to the dingy hovel from which he’d run away after a fierce row with his widowed mother to find her hanging from the ceiling and his younger brother drowned in the bath. A scrawled, semi-literate note explained that not only had bailiffs taken all the family’s possessions but the landlord was about to evict them. After that, the young Duncalf had wanted nothing more to do with the rest of the world. He yearned for the earth to swallow him up so that he disappeared for ever. These days, he exulted inwardly at his sheer invisibility. Moving unnoticed through crowded streets was strangely thrilling. It gave him a sense of power.
The photographs revealed that Mrs Kiki de Villiers was attractive, but he wasn’t interested in her looks, let alone in speculating about whatever peccadilloes had caused her to become a marked woman. All that mattered was her mass of red hair. It made her an easy target. According to his brief, she had a flat in central London, while her husband lived out in the country. Yet there was every confidence that she would be in Rye tonight. One of the major’s tried and tested stratagems was to have a subordinate set up some bogus assignation, tying the target to a particular location at a particular time. Possibly he’d done the same in this case. Duncalf wasn’t interested. The background arrangements didn’t concern him. He did his own job and expected other people to do theirs.
Unfolding the map, he studied the route to the south coast. Timings were bound to be approximate, but he didn’t have much of a margin for error. Cover of darkness was invariably helpful in his line of work, and his instructions were to reach his destination after sunset, but without delaying his arrival beyond a further half hour. He made mental calculations, allowing for the unfamiliarity of the roads, the possibility of hold-ups, and the need to adjust his speed in the dark.
Next he turned to the street plan of Rye. It would be unwise to park his car in Sepulchre Street, but he needed it to be within easy reach, in case of an emergency. The major had flagged a couple of convenient locations. Duncalf would take a final decision when he was on the spot.
He subjected the neatly sketched floor plan of Sepulchre House to a minute examination. According to the brief, he was likely to find Mrs de Villiers in her sitting room at the front of the house, but that couldn’t be taken for granted. Her devoted maid represented a serious complication. Apparently the relationship between mistress and servant was so intimate that they might be spending the evening in each other’s company.
His orders were to shoot both women. This was fortunate. Stabbing or some other method would have made his task more difficult. The modus operandi was a crucial part of the major’s planning. A gun must be the intended scapegoat’s weapon of choice.
How much simpler the assignment would have been if his employers had lured the maid away from the scene of the crime. There must be compelling reasons why she could not be permitted to survive. Presumably because of what she knew.
Duncalf sighed. Why did people never learn? Ignorance really was bliss. It was a cardinal mistake to know too much.
19
Romney Marsh brooded under vast ashen skies. Threads of mist gave the lowlands an otherworldly atmosphere. Trueman drove the Austin Seven with a sure touch, concentrating with his habitual intensity. He’d not uttered a word since they’d left London behind, long before undulating countryside gave way to flat ground, much of it below sea level. The Phantom would have been tricky to manoeuvre through the narrow, twisting lanes and ditches, but the smaller car made good progress through the labyrinth.
Rachel’s nose was stuck in a gazetteer. Martha, sitting by her side, knew she was committing its contents to memory. It reminded her of when they were growing up on Gaunt and Rachel had combed through the books in the Judge’s astonishing library. Martha often teased her about it, but Rachel always gave the same retort.
