Cameo, page 4
‘Finger-prints aren’t any use without a man to link them to. Anyway it’s a fair risk. I should have gone to them last night. On the whole, I’m glad I didn’t.’
She had finished her cigarette, got up abruptly, dropped the end in the grate. Now that you looked around you could see the signs of female occupancy in the room, decorating or softening the awful Victorian furnishings.
He said: ‘ How come you’re sharing a flat with Paula if you’ve known her so short a time?’
‘Same old thing. Part of my roof came off and a friend, Diana, who shared it, had just gone to join the WAAF. I met Paula at a cocktail party; she said, there’s room in Gaskin Street. So I came.’
‘Just like that.’
‘Just like that.’
He still hesitated. ‘Does Paula Krissen have an agent, d’you think?’
‘A theatrical agent? Oh, yes. It’s Frederick Hanson of St Martin’s Lane. She was always going off to see him.’
He offered her another cigarette but she shook her head. He noticed she was looking at her watch.
‘Are you expecting someone?’
‘What? Oh, no. Not at all. I was only thinking.’
‘I can cut along now. I expect you’d like a bit of time to mull it over.’
‘It isn’t that,’ she said. ‘My face is a trifle red.’
‘About what?’
‘I don’t have four pounds ten to give you at present!’
‘For what?’
‘For the watch. I didn’t get paid this week as the place is a shambles … Perhaps you could keep the watch till Friday?’
‘Forget it –’
‘I can’t do that. If you could leave me your address …’
‘Somewhere in England.’
She smiled. ‘But you must have a forwarding address?’
He said: ‘I’ve been thinking too. If I ring the police again now I shall bow out; everything will be taken out of my hands. I don’t really think I shall be able to write it out of my life as easily as that. Do you?’
‘I’ve no idea … Yes, of course I see what you mean. It’s too grim for you to forget or – or ignore. But what else can you do?’
‘Well, I’ve been wondering. Wondering if we might postpone this dire civic duty of going to the police – say just for a single day, or part of a day, while we have a little more time to consider it.’
He met her surprised glance with a friendly frankness as candid as her own.
‘What does that mean?’ she said.
He ducked the question.
‘Well, for instance, can we find out anything more about this man she’s recently been going out with? You never saw him? Or heard his name? … Or where they met?’
‘I know where they met. It was at the Blue Peter – a night-club in Berkeley Square.’
‘Someone introduced them?’
‘Don’t think so. Paula said they got talking at the bar. It’s rather a classy place. I’ve never been, but she went there about once a month.’
‘Seeing what she could pick up?’
‘Maybe.’ There was less warmth in that reply.
‘Well, I never knew the lady. I’m only judging from what I’m told. Did she never say anything more about the man?’
‘He wasn’t badly off. Bought her a nice brooch, I remember.’
The baby was still crying, a passionate sound, without solace.
‘If I thought there was a chance of identifying this chap,’ Andrew said, ‘ it would seem a reasonable thing to follow his trail for a bit.’
She went to the window. ‘ It’s still pretty hard to believe what you’ve told me about Paula. Are you sure she – that she died the way you think?’
‘I’ve never seen a strangled woman before,’ Andrew said. ‘But there wasn’t a lot of room for doubt.’
She put her hands to her elbows as if cold. She came round, thin as a rake, great eyes on him. ‘ If you don’t tell the police at once, what do you want to do?’
‘Well,’ he said. ‘What are you doing today?’
She flushed. ‘I have to go to Beaufort’s this afternoon, to a temporary office near St Paul’s. The manager has found a place of sorts and expects to re-open next week. Nothing else.’
‘I have some bits of things from the house that I promised to parcel up and send off to my mother. After that I’m free. Will you have dinner with me tonight? Then we might go on to the Blue Peter.’
The flush faded and she smiled. ‘ If the police don’t catch up with me I’d love to.’
Saturday Evening
I
Smart Mayfair night-clubs do have a membership list even in wartime, but Andrew had been lucky enough to recall that a great personal friend of his was likely to be a member. He was lucky enough too to catch him at his hotel and an exchange of telephone calls did the rest. The name of Count Radziwill – Stephen’s father – counted for something still.
They got there about nine-thirty, climbed unaided through the gilt and red plush, found seats and sat for a few minutes listening to the band. Jennifer was in a shortish satin frock of cerise and cream, off the shoulders, with big sleeves. It was not haute couture but it looked right on her. She wasn’t thin-bony, she was thin-slim, and her shoulders looked good enough to eat.
At the restaurant she’d told him that on the way back from Beaufort’s she had called in to see Paula’s agent, asking him for Paula’s address while she was out of town. He said he didn’t have one, that he’d been trying to get her an audition for a new revue opening soon at the Prince of Wales’s, that when she called in last Monday she’d seemed in high spirits and had promised to telephone him Friday. She hadn’t telephoned him Friday, so he was expecting a call after the weekend. Frederick Hanson hadn’t met Paula’s latest boyfriend.
During the afternoon he had telephoned his mother, taken the MG in to have a few minor jobs done (his screenwiper was playing up, and one front brake was binding) and generally occupied himself with everything except the one big question. Maybe it wasn’t really a big question at all. He’d wanted a girl; he’d found a girl; and rather a smasher in her ingenuous way; chance had brought them together; it was going to improve his leave no end – certainly the next day or so.
Shouldn’t he have gone to the police about the dead woman’s identity in any case? Even if the police had called it was likely that Jennifer Ward would have been free by the evening. They couldn’t arrest her; she would be a far more innocent party in their eyes than he. So – this dinner might have taken place just the same, without any need to worry about Paula and her affairs. A chance meeting with a nice girl, a dinner, a dance; kiss her good-bye at the end of the evening; or a bit of petting in the car; maybe something more: difficult to tell about a bright young girl living in a shabby flat in war-torn London. Why keep the shadow of Paula hanging around them, with her nasty boyfriend in the background?
Well … that was all logic. But there was a high-strung, combative streak in him that wasn’t confined to aerial dogfights. It was still less than twenty-four hours since he had stumbled on the woman, and, in spite of his daily diet of war, it would be a long time before he forgot Paula Krissen’s face. It looked as if Jennifer would have come out with him tonight anyway; but a common purpose of finding out if possible why it had happened – bound the evening together, bound them together, would, if the evening went well and he wanted to follow it up, give him a fair excuse for seeing her again tomorrow.
Jennifer said her father had been a not-very-successful novelist who had died two years ago. Her mother had rather smartly married again – ‘a nice man, a chemist, but not as important to me’. From Swindon Jennifer had written to Beaufort’s, who had published her father, and they had offered her a job as typist with prospects of becoming the managing editor’s secretary.
‘They pay terribly,’ she said, ‘ but I’m told publishers always do; they have lots of applicants for jobs because girls think it’s a glamorous profession. Knowing my father, I should have known better than that!’
‘And what did you talk to Paula about?’ Andrew asked.
‘Actually it was a bit of a Box and Cox arrangement. She was in during the day, and when I came home she was usually off out somewhere. It suited us. Of course we did talk … I liked her, though some people might look down their noses at the way she lived. But she was never crude about it. What happened outside wasn’t my business, and she didn’t bring men into the flat. She took life so light-heartedly that other people took her the same. She was always joking and talking, with her funny bit of an accent and –’
‘Accent?’ said Andrew. ‘What sort of accent?’
He spoke sharply and with the hint of authority his rank had given him; she looked at him, great-eyed, before going on.
‘She was foreign. Her father and mother were both naturalized British subjects; one German, the other Hungarian. Paula always had an accent. Why?’
‘Don’t know.’ He had found his concentration diverted by her reaction. ‘ One takes extra note in wartime.’
‘Oh, she was English enough in the way she looked at things! And furious about the bombing. She used to curse and swear and shake her fist!’
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘I’ve forgotten where I was. You put me off.’
‘Well, start again at the beginning.’
‘Oh, I know; I was saying how happy-go-lucky she was. Nearly all the time she was in good spirits. Only once in a while she’d get fits of the blues and would hardly utter for a couple of days.’
‘Did it coincide with anything?’
‘No. Not in the sense you mean.’ Jennifer disturbed her floating fringe. ‘ Come to think of it, there was a doctor she visited two or three times. She had bad headaches, and he’d give her something. Always seemed to put her right.’
‘Who was he, d’you know?’
‘Yes, because I got a prescription made up for her once. Norley was the name. His surgery was in Shadwell.’
‘Shadwell, for Pete’s sake! Isn’t that miles away, down in the East End?’
‘She used to live round there.’
‘Was she Jewish?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, we’re not getting very far, are we. If I went to see her doctor it’s unlikely he’d tell me anything except to mind my own damned business.’
She said: ‘You’re really interested in following this up?’
He considered. How far should he be honest with her? If she’d been fat and spotty, would he have wanted to carry on at all? When you’ve been at stretch for a long time and get a few days’ leave, you want to measure them out, occupy them, savour them, fill the unforgiving minute. Monday he must see his parents. Should be tomorrow really. But much as he loved them and wanted to see them, a day would be enough. His mother would say he was thinner than ever and would try to put back the lost weight in twenty-four hours. His father would talk – knowledgeably enough – about the war, and knock out his pipe and show him the daffodils, and ask him, hopefully, whether it was likely he might be drafted out of front line combat to become a trainer pilot. And one or two neighbours would have to come in for drinks. What was wrong with that? Nothing was wrong with that. But if you’re living most of the time just below the sound barrier you can’t suddenly settle for the lower decibels. Five days. Fill the unforgiving minute. Wasn’t this – taking a nice and immensely pretty girl out and pursuing the causes of a crime – as good a way as any, and better than most?
‘There are still a few people I know in Vernon Avenue,’ he said. ‘I talked to an ARP warden this afternoon, asked him if by any chance he knew who lived in No 9 Carlton Avenue, as I’d seen an ambulance there this morning and wondered if someone was ill. He swallowed that and said No 9 Carlton Avenue belonged to a retired bank manager called Hill who’d lost his wife in one of the early blitzes while she was visiting friends and had then shut up the house and gone to live with a sister in the Lake District.’
‘I’ve never heard Paula speak of anyone called Hill.’
‘Unlikely he was anything to do with it. A murderer would hardly strangle a woman and leave her in his own house. Anyway, the police will be following that up. This man – the one Paula was going out with – did she ever say that he was foreign?’
‘No. As I’ve told you, he seemed quite well off. Drove a car. Bought her presents.’
‘A brooch, you said.’
‘Yes, a cameo. And a nice compact. And a scarf.’
‘None of which, of course, she could afford to pawn. Otherwise she mightn’t have bothered to borrow your watch.’
She looked down at it. ‘I still owe you money.’
‘Good job this isn’t a Victorian melodrama.’
She looked up then, glinted with humour. ‘You’ve still time to grow the moustache.’
‘Many of my friends do,’ said Andrew. ‘They vary from brief shadows on the upper lip to heavy Hungarian things that sway in the breeze.’
‘I’ve never met a Squadron Leader before,’ she said. ‘ When you came this morning I wasn’t sure what the rings were, so I bought a pamphlet in a kiosk just off Salisbury Square. But it didn’t tell me what the medals were.’
‘The medals?’
‘The ribbons.’
‘Oh … one’s the DFC. The other’s a Polish thing.’
‘Why Polish?’
‘Well, I was flying with a Polish squadron for a time.’
After they had been in the Blue Peter for a while they danced. This was good. All right, sad about Paula, but it was war-time London. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow …
There wasn’t much in the girl, but what there was felt good. She moved against him, slipping into his step, smiling, her frock rustling; she laughed at something he said; a deep sound for her. She used some scent but it was very slight, not powerful, like –
‘What was the scent your friend used?’
‘What? What scent?’
‘You told me this morning. Some flower.’
‘Oh, Paula. Yes. Gardenia.’ She shivered. ‘It was strong but it suited her. That’s … I suppose that’s what clinched it, made me certain there was no mistake.’
When the dance ended Andrew said: ‘Let’s see if we can pump the head barman.’
The internationally known Henry was a mountain of a man, still young but gross of face and feature, with curly fair hair and pouting lips. There were only two other people at the bar.
‘Paula Krissen been here tonight?’ Andrew asked as the drinks were slid across to him.
‘Who, sir?’ Henry looked a little surprised, as if being asked to betray professional secrets.
‘Miss Krissen. You must know her. Tall, dark, a bit foreign.’
Henry went away, busying himself with the little tasks that even the most distinguished of barmen find to do. Then, having had time to look at Andrew’s uniform in more detail through the mirror, he came back. ‘Miss Krissen? Oh yes, sir. That is to say, no. We haven’t seen her for upwards of a week.’
‘As long as that? She’d be in with her friend, I suppose? What’s his name, I forget?’
‘You mean the tall gentleman? Couldn’t say, sir. Rather the stranger to me. I think he’s a new member.’
Andrew looked at Jennifer, who was listening politely. ‘What’s Paula’s friend called? I never remember his name.’
She said brightly: ‘Was it John something or other?’
Andrew frowned. ‘The man I mean is a tall good-looking fellow, youngish, well-dressed, well-heeled.’
‘With curly hair and a big laugh, sir?’
‘That’s the chap.’
‘I’ll ask Ernesto when he comes back. He served them.’ Henry removed his bulk to attend to someone else.
They finished their drink.
‘Dance?’ Andrew said.
She smiled at him and slid quietly off her stool.
‘Curly hair and a big laugh,’ he said when they were moving.
‘You know, this man still might have nothing to do with her being dead, might have left her somewhere, gone home.’
‘An alibi would be needed,’ said Andrew. ‘And why hasn’t he bothered to ring her?’
‘So what’s the next move?’
‘I’m wondering if the old girl in the green dress might have seen him or know something about him.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘The one who answered my ring at your place this morning. Looks like an elderly tart.’
‘Mrs Lawson?’ She crowed with laughter. ‘ Our landlady? Have you never heard of Harry Lawson, the comedian? She’s his widow. And frightfully respectable.’
‘She shouldn’t take to curling pins at her age,’ said Andrew unreasonably. ‘Every curl on her head looks like a fate worse than death.’
‘I did ask her about Paula this afternoon, but she didn’t seem interested, except about the rent Paula owed.’
The dance stopped.
‘Another drink?’
‘Thanks, no.’ He found her looking at him. She said: ‘It’s quite difficult …’
‘What?’
‘You’d think me rude.’
‘Try.’
‘I mean it’s difficult sometimes to decide – You must be very young for your position?’
‘Not these days. I’m twenty-five. There are a few younger.’ He was going to say plenty younger, but in fact not too many had stayed in circulation.
‘Well, you look so different sometimes from others.’
‘Sure. Who doesn’t?’
‘I mean … you’re in authority, aren’t you. It’s – a big job, and then you look older. But other times –’ She gave him a flashing smile – ‘other times you don’t.’
‘Do have another drink,’ he said, ‘then you’ll be able to read my character.’
‘And lose my own?’
‘Henry will come if I whistle.’
She shook her head. ‘Thanks no, I mean it.’
‘You may be dead tomorrow.’
‘Or wish I was.’ She looked at him closely. ‘You see, that’s what I mean. I can’t tell whether you’re joking or serious.’
‘Always serious about drink.’ They got to their table, and as they did so a mountainous figure came soft-footed after them. Thick lips pursed as if in distaste at his own lapse of dignity, Henry said:
