Dead of Winter (23 page)

‘No doubt they will, sir. But it matters how long they take. It’s vital to know who we’re chasing, and time isn’t on our side. It’s already been a week since the Wapping shooting and we’ve had ample evidence that he’s bent on covering his tracks. I only hope by the time we hear from Paris there’s still a trail left to follow.’

Sinclair sat scowling. He knew he was being unreasonable: barely four days had passed since his message had been dispatched to the Sûreté. But his gout had chosen that morning to return with particular venom and he sat shifting miserably in his chair, his toe throbbing.

‘Is there anything more we can do from this side now? Have we exhausted all avenues?’

Fully cognizant of his colleague’s discomfort – and equally aware that he would not wish it referred to – the assistant commissioner sought to be sympathetic.

‘For the time being, yes. What we’re doing now is waiting on Paris, hoping they can tell us first whether or not this is Marko we’re dealing with and if so, what they know about his movements before the outbreak of war. They would surely have stayed on his trail as long as they could.’

The chief inspector sought to control his impatience. While awaiting a reply from Paris he had used the time to pursue what few leads seemed to offer any prospect of progress, and it was their failure to produce even a gleam of light that he’d been recounting to Bennett that morning, and which had contributed to his gloomy mood.

‘There were two areas I wanted covered,’ he’d declared. ‘The first was to do with Alfie Meeks. We’re still faced with the mystery of how he came into contact with this man, and I’ve had detectives scouring the market at Southwark trying to find someone who might know – or have spotted – something that would be of use to us. Styles and Grace have been organizing that with the help of the Southwark police, and between them they must have talked to every stallholder there as well as a lot of the customers. But all to no effect: it was the same story wherever they went. One day he simply packed up and disappeared. His stall was only a folding table and his goods fitted into a suitcase. He asked one of the other traders to look after them for him and she put them with her stuff in a shed she uses for storage. They’ve been lying there ever since.’

Sinclair had ground his teeth in frustration.

‘His landlady was no help, either, other than telling us that Meeks had been able to pay the rent he owed her and seemed pleased with himself. It’s clear this man put money in his pocket. But he doesn’t seem to have had any friends, not close ones, anyway. Just people he would chat to when he went to the pub. We asked there, naturally, but no one could tell us anything; nor at the café he frequented. Just that he hadn’t been in for a while. He’d vanished.’

Bennett had listened to him in silence. Then he, too, had shrugged.

‘That sounds like a dead end. Two areas, you said?’

Sinclair nodded. ‘I decided to approach Mrs Laski again. She rang up a week ago to say she had read through Rosa Nowak’s diaries and there was nothing in them that would help us. As she’d suspected they weren’t a record of Rosa’s life, as such, or of the people she’d met. Just a young girl’s thoughts and dreams. Upsetting for her aunt, poor woman, but she did it, and I thought we might ask for her help again.’

The chief inspector had paused, frowning.

‘Unfortunately, we learned yesterday she’d been admitted into University College Hospital with severe bronchitis. She can’t clear her lungs. It’s a common cause of death among the old at this time of year, and according to the hospital she’s in poor health anyway and unlikely to recover. I don’t want to bother her again, particularly with a subject that’s bound to upset her.’

‘What did you want to ask her exactly?’

‘Whether she knows anything about the time Rosa spent in France. This is all very speculative, but it springs from John Madden’s idea that there might have been some prior encounter between Rosa and this man – something that prompted him to kill her – and in view of what we now know about him we wondered whether that might have occurred in France. At present our only information on that score comes from a conversation Helen had with the girl. Rosa told her she’d got there shortly before the war started and stayed with a friend of her father’s in Tours. However, she did visit Paris shortly before the Germans invaded France and it was from there that she left to go to England.’

‘Madden’s wife told you this?’

Sinclair nodded. ‘That was the time of the “phoney war”, and from what Rosa said, Helen gathered she was hoping like others that things would be resolved; that there might be peace after all and she would be reunited with her family. The girl had some contacts in Paris among the Polish community, and she went there to talk to them, and perhaps get some news of home. In the event, the Germans invaded soon after her arrival and then it was a matter of getting out of France herself. At some point she’d joined up with a friend, a young Pole she knew, but they left it late, apparently, and in the end had to escape via Spain. They managed to get passage on a boat from Lisbon. Unfortunately this young man’s not available for questioning; he enlisted in the army soon after they got here and was killed in action. That’s all I remember of what Helen told me, but I’m seeing Madden later – he’s up in London for a day or two – and I’ll check with him in case I’ve forgotten anything.’

The chief inspector shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Sighing audibly, he assembled his papers and prepared to depart. Bennett eyed him.

‘I spoke to the commissioner yesterday. He’s been pressing me on the Wapping shooting. Wants it cleared up quickly. Well, don’t we all? I was able to tell him of the possible link we’ve made to those French murders, and how it came about. He allowed that he was impressed.’

‘You mentioned Poole’s name?’ For the first time that morning a smile crossed Sinclair’s lips.

‘I did more than that. I told him exactly how she’d unearthed the IPC message; the hours of work she’d put in. He still wants that report in writing from you. But you might put a different slant on it now. He’s in a receptive mood.’

Bennett, too, was smiling.

‘Cheer up, Angus. I’m sure we’ll get a response from Paris soon. What do you hear from the Military Police? When do they expect another pouch?’

‘There was one due this afternoon, but it goes to the Military Police headquarters in Chichester first. If there’s anything in it for us it’ll be sent up to London by courier tomorrow. We can only wait and see.’

‘Still, we’d better be prepared. The reply will be in French. Have a word with Registry. Make sure they have one of their people on hand who can do whatever translation’s needed. We don’t want to waste any time.’

He watched as the chief inspector gathered himself.

‘You say Madden’s up in London. See if you can persuade him to pay us a visit. It’s been a while since I saw him last and I’d be interested to hear his views on all this.’

The suggestion was one Sinclair had already acted on, though for a different reason. Knowing that Madden would like to see him while he was in town, he had invited Billy Styles to join them for lunch, and it had been agreed they would all gather at the Yard before setting off.

‘We might look in on Bennett afterwards,’ he said when his former colleague appeared shortly after midday, having been escorted upstairs to the chief inspector’s office by one of the commissionaires. ‘That is, if you can tear yourself away from Aunt Maud’s boiler.’

‘Oh, don’t worry about that.’ Madden looked wry. ‘The matter’s out of my hands. Lucy’s taken charge. I think her mother underestimates her. But as for her comings and goings – I’m supposed to enquire into them – well, they’re a complete mystery.’

‘Ah, the joys of fatherhood!’ Sinclair chuckled heartlessly.‘Well, here’s another one for you. We’ve got a little time to waste. You might care to cast an eye on it.’

He tossed Madden the file, and he was still leafing through its pages, his brow creased in a familiar scowl, when Billy knocked on the door and came in.

‘I’ve been reading about your exploits, Inspector.’ Madden rose with a smile to greet him. ‘That was a nasty business at Wapping; you must tell me all about it. Something else, too.’ He tapped the file with his finger. ‘I’ve spotted a familiar name, someone I want to ask you about. But it’ll keep till lunch.’

The restaurant Sinclair had chosen was in Westminster, within walking distance, and on the way over he warned his guests not to get their hopes up.

‘It used to be a decent place. But the food’s appalling wherever you go now. One can only pray for a miracle.’

In vain, as it turned out. The fish pie they chose from the menu materialized as glistening, whitish lumps, barely edible, and the chief inspector was the first to push his plate away.

‘I was given an American magazine the other day,’ he said gloomily. It was the issue before Thanksgiving and the cover had a picture of a table groaning with food. Turkey, ham, pumpkin pie; fruit and nuts. I tell you I was close to tears.’

Billy caught Madden’s eye. A name you said, sir?’

‘That’s right. I spotted it when I was going through the statements you took down in Southwark. Nelly Stover … ?’

‘Oh, her?’ Billy emptied his glass of beer. ‘She’s a tough old bird. I interviewed her myself. She’s got a stall in that market where Alfie Meeks worked. Claims she knew him. She was the one he asked to look after his stuff when he went off.’

‘Knew him? From before he came to the market?’

‘She said she’d remembered him from when he was a kid. Over in Bethnal Green. That’s where Alfie grew up.’ Billy cocked an eye at his old mentor. ‘Is that where
you
knew her, sir?’

‘If it’s the same Nelly Stover. Tell me, did she mention having a husband? Bob was his name, I think. A merchant seaman.’

Billy grimaced. ‘Then it’s her, all right. She told me her old man copped it in ’42. His ship went down in the Atlantic. Torpedoed. I’d asked about him because I thought with them both coming from Bethnal Green one or other might have known something more about Meeks. Who his friends were, for example. But she said they’d moved away from there years ago and she hadn’t seen Alfie again until he turned up one day at the market with his folding table and a suitcase of goods. She didn’t recognize him, but when she heard his name she went over to say hello and tell him who she was. That’s how he came to leave his stuff with her.’

Madden mused for a moment. ‘Did she happen to mention her son?’ he asked.

Billy shook his head.

‘Why?’ Sinclair asked. He’d been listening to them with interest.

‘It’s coming back to me now.’ Madden smiled. ‘He was a handful. Not a bad boy, just wild. In with the wrong lot. I caught him trying to break into a tobacconist. I knew if I charged him he’d end up in a borstal, so instead I dragged him off by the scruff of his neck and put him in Nelly’s hands. She had a fish and chip shop then, and the way I heard it she walloped him so hard with one of her saucepans he had bruises for weeks. But he never put a foot wrong again so far as I know, and the last I heard he’d got himself a job.’ With a sigh he turned back to Billy. ‘I’m sorry to hear about her husband. Tell me, how did she strike you? Is she well? She must be on her own now.’

‘Not quite. She’s got a couple of grandkids living with her. I know, because she shut up shop while we were still talking and went off to collect them. Told me if I had any more questions I’d have to come back another day.’ He grinned. ‘A tough old bird, as I say. But I liked her.’

‘So she knew Alfie when he was a boy …’ Madden was looking thoughtful. ‘I might have guessed. It was a close-knit community.’ He caught Billy’s eye. ‘Alfie’s father was a villain called Jonah Meeks. He was the worst kind of bully; hated by all. His body was fished out of an abandoned cistern one day. It was ruled an accident.’

‘Yes, I got that from records. And his mother died when he was ten. Nelly Stover told me. There was a stepmother later, but she’s gone, too. He didn’t seem to have any family. Nor friends, come to that.’

‘Did she know about the Wapping business?’ Sinclair asked. ‘Before you told her, I mean?’

Billy nodded. ‘She said she couldn’t understand what Alfie was doing in that sort of company. Said he was a sad little man.’

While he was speaking, the head waiter had appeared beside their table. He bent to whisper in Sinclair’s ear and the chief inspector rose to his feet.

‘Would you excuse me? I’ve a call.’

He was back after only a minute, and it was plain to see from his expression that something momentous had occurred. He signalled at once for the bill.

‘That was Bennett,’ he said, glancing at Madden. ‘Do you remember me telling you about that French detective who came over here before the war to help us with a case?’

‘The one who’d been in charge of the Fontainebleau case?’

Sinclair nodded. ‘Commissaire Duval. Well, he’s just been on the phone from Paris. Don’t ask me how he got through, but it seems our guess was right. It’s Marko we’re after. Duval says there’s no mistake.’

‘How does he know?’ Madden’s voice carried an edge of excitement. ‘How can he be sure?’

‘I’ve no idea.’ Sinclair rose and his two guests followed suit. ‘But we’ll find out soon enough. Bennett wants us back right away.’ He touched Madden’s arm. ‘You, too, John. He made that clear. He’s got something to tell you.’

‘Angus … at last!’

The assistant commissioner looked up from his desk as Sinclair came in. Several sheets of paper covered with his scrawl lay on the blotter in front of him; he’d been peering down at them.

‘Madden, how are you?’ He had just caught sight of the chief inspector’s companion. ‘Come in, please.’ He rose and they shook hands.

Bennett gestured to the chairs that were already lined up, facing his desk. His face was a little flushed.

‘Duval asked for you first, Angus, but you were out, so the switchboard sensibly put him on to me. He’d been trying for a couple of days to get through. Said in the end they’d “gone to the top”, whatever that means, but it’ll give you some idea of how important they think this is. Unfortunately we only spoke for five minutes before the telephone people cut us off. However …’