Malice in London (3 page)

“I get the beans at Starbucks in Shaftesbury Avenue. It reminds me of home, I guess.” There was a hint of something in her voice.

They ate in silence, Powell feeling a little self-conscious. “In case you’re wondering,” he said eventually, “I don’t make a habit of sleeping in strange beds.”

“Of course you don’t.” She hesitated. “But you should look after yourself. I mean, what would your wife think?”

What indeed? he wondered.

She suddenly looked embarrassed. “I-I’m sorry—it’s none of my business. I’m beginning to sound like my mother.”

Powell smiled ruefully. “Think nothing of it, Jill. I’m well aware of my frailties, believe me.”

The tension released, Jill laughed. “You were certainly in good form last night.”

Powell had no idea what she was talking about and decided it would be best not to ask. He was dying for a cigarette and tried to suppress the urge. He anointed another piece of toast with marmalade. “Er, any plans for the weekend?”

“Nothing special. My boyfriend’s away at his parents’ place in the country. I’ll probably stick fairly close to home. I’ve got to work tonight.”

“Where do his parents live?”

“In Shropshire somewhere. From what I hear, they own half the county.”

“Oh?” Powell remarked significantly.

“I suppose you’re wondering why I didn’t go with him?”

“The thought never crossed my mind,” he lied.

She hesitated. “What the hell? I could use a little fatherly advice. Stephen’s parents wanted him to go to Oxford, so they’re not happy about him being in London in the first place.”

“A highly overrated institution,” Powell observed.

“And I get the impression that I don’t quite come up to their standards.”

“What does Stephen think about all this?”

“I think he’s fond of me …”

“
Fond
of you?”

She sighed. “Sometimes I wonder if we’re really right for each other.” Her eyes met his. “Tell me, Powell, what would
you
do if you were in my shoes?”

“
Change, as ye list, ye winds; my heart shall be the faithful compass that still points to thee.
”

Jill looked thoughtful. “Follow my heart, you mean?”

“Something like that.”

She looked at him with a quizzical expression. “How did you ever become a cop, anyway?”

“That, my girl, is a long story. I’ll tell you about it over the washing up.”

Half an hour later, they stood on the doorstep of her flat for an awkward moment. “Thank you, Jill. You’ve been very kind. I’d like to repay you in some way …”

Her eyes twinkled. “Don’t be silly. You already have. Now, hurry or you’ll miss your train. I’ll see you at the pub.”

Powell waved as he stepped from the mews into Gower Street. He stopped to light a cigarette, contemplating a jolly weekend spreading manure.

He sat smoking a joint in his bed-sit in King’s Cross. The tiny room was littered with clothing, books, and dirty dishes. The place smelled of damp and stale semen. The one small window looked out on the vast tract of desolate ground north of the railway station. A radio blared tinnily somewhere.

He stared at the blank page on the table in front of him. He tried to concentrate, to translate the jumbled images in his head into words on paper, but nothing happened. Turn off that frigging radio, have to think, have to write, he thought, growing increasingly agitated. He knew they wanted him to come crawling back mother father frigging teachers can’t make a living writing that crap be sensible for God’s sake—“Sod them all!” he screamed, throwing the notebook against the wall. One of the pages came loose and drifted crazily to the floor like a stricken butterfly.

He sat immobile for several minutes, letting his mind drift. You can’t force the creative process, he told himself,
just need to give it a rest, that’s all. Think about something else. He had a girl, hadn’t he? That was all that really mattered. He thought about her long brown hair and slim body and fantasized about what he’d like to do to her. His eyes were faraway now. He knew that she barely knew he existed, didn’t understand what he was about, but he had a plan to change all that, something so breathtaking in its conception that she would have no choice but to take notice. Then he would have her all to himself. He sucked on the joint again, fingers trembling, and held it in for a long time. He exhaled slowly, watching the smoke drift and curl into spiral clouds illuminated by the shafts of golden light streaming through the window.

It was a typical night at the Fitzrovia Tavern. The kind of night in late April when a raw wind off the North Sea sweeps down Charlotte Street, impelling both the virtuous and the not-so-virtuous to seek refuge in the nearest pub. There was the usual crowd in attendance, and as Jill Burroughs worked behind the bar, mechanically drawing pints and mixing drinks, she realized for the first time since she had been in London that the novelty was beginning to wear off. And now that she thought about it, the sentiment applied equally to her boyfriend, her job, and even to her decision to travel before going back to university. She was in a rotten mood, she couldn’t deny it—

There was a loud commotion in the front of the bar. “Did he think he could fob me off like I was a tourist from a coach?” roared a large red-faced man with a perfectly coifed mane of white hair who was holding forth
at a crowded table by the window. “When I demanded to know how he could serve such filth, the bloody Frog had the cheek to ask me to leave. When he reads my review on Sunday, he’ll know who he’s dealing with, by God! It’ll be bloody Agincourt all over again!” As the table erupted in laughter, Clive Morton, restaurant critic and self-styled bon vivant fixed his eyes on Jill. “Pull me old handle again, would you, love?” he called out.

“Pull it yourself,” she muttered under her breath as she filled another glass with beer. Or, better yet, she thought, get one of your minions to do it for you. Celia Cross, the proprietor of the Fitzrovia, had told her to watch out for Morton when he had arrived a little over an hour ago. The word was he’d been banned from his drinking club in Dean Street and was now reduced to performing for the plebs. He had come in alone and appeared at first to be waiting for someone. It wasn’t long, however, before he was joined by a crowd of hangerson. Jill recognized a couple of media types and one or two others whom she couldn’t place but who looked vaguely familiar. Clive Morton clearly reveled in being the center of attention. Jill plonked the glass down on the bar.

“You’re not going to make me
come
over there, are you, love?” he asked loudly.

“That’ll be one-sixty-five, please,” Jill said frostily.

“You’ll have to train her better than that, Clive,” someone quipped.

Morton got unsteadily to his feet and lurched over to the bar. He scattered a handful of change in Jill’s direction.
“You should be nicer to me. I could do things for you, y’know.” He leered unpleasantly.

His eyes seemed unnaturally bright and his manner was infused with a slightly manic quality that Jill suspected was fueled by more than alcohol. She glared at him. “What did you have in mind exactly?”

“Show you a bit of the good life. For starters.”

“And what’s for
afters
—me?”

He smirked. “Don’t flatter yourself, love.”

“Will there be anything else?” she said between clenched teeth.

Morton’s eyes narrowed. “You’ll be the first to know, I promise you.” He picked up his glass and made his way back to his table, spilling beer on the carpet as he went.

As Jill turned to get a bag of crisps for another customer, she sensed someone’s eyes on her back. She turned slowly around. He was sitting by himself at his usual table in the corner, staring at her. When he realized he had been caught in the act, he got visibly flustered and started scribbling in the notebook he always carried with him.

The pasty-faced young man with the curly black hair (Jill thought of him as “the Poet”) obviously had a crush on her. He came in two or three nights a week for a couple of hours and pretended not to watch her. Whenever she served him, he seemed extremely self-conscious, to the point of incoherence, barely able to string two words together. One night when she was clearing his table, she’d found a crumpled sheet of paper he had left behind. It was a love poem of sorts, or at least a painful
attempt at one. More disconcerting was its explicitly erotic content, because she had no doubt it was intended for her. She supposed he was harmless enough, not some sort of deranged stalker or anything like that, but it was beginning to wear on her nerves. She wondered if she should have kept the poem, as evidence or something … With an effort she forced her mind off this train of thought. I’m just being silly, she chided herself. She started at the sound of her name.

“Jill, love, you’re as white as a sheet! You’re not sickening are you?” It was Celia Cross, her employer.

Jill smiled wanly. “Just got a bit of a headache, that’s all. I’ll be all right.”

“That one’s not bothering you, is ’e?” The publican threw a disgusted glance at Clive Morton’s table.

Jill grimaced. “Don’t worry, I’m used to his type. I—” She was about to explain about the Poet but decided it could wait for a better time. Her head had begun to pound now, to the point where she could hardly think straight.

Celia examined her from head to toe, an expression of fond concern on her face. “Look, love, why don’t you go ’ome and get a good night’s sleep—do you a world of good,” she pronounced, having made her diagnosis. “Raymond and I can manage.”

“Thanks, Celia. I’ll make it up next week.”

“Don’t be silly. Now off you go,” she admonished.

A few minutes later, Jill was walking home down Windmill Street. The darkened street, lined with shops and art galleries, was deserted at this time of night, and
she felt vaguely uneasy. She paused, shivering convulsively. I’m probably just coming down with a bug, she told herself. She started walking again, fixing her attention on the streetlamp lighting the corner up ahead. In the distance, she could see the lights of the traffic in the Tottenham Court Road. It had started to rain, so she began to hurry. She stopped in the reassuring pool of light beneath the streetlamp and looked up at the rain slanting like silver tinsel against the sky and began to open her umbrella. Suddenly she froze.

There was a staccato burst of footsteps behind her.
Click click click click click.
Then silence except for the hissing of the rain. For an instant, as the adrenaline surged through her body, she was unable to move, not daring to look around. Then she whirled, brandishing her umbrella, staring wildly into the darkness. She blinked helplessly, her eyes dazzled by the light. She felt like a deer caught in a lorry’s headlamps, which was hardly the impression she was trying to create. She thought about calling out, but incongruously, though she was frightened half to death, she didn’t wish to appear foolish. Perhaps it had been someone in the next street or someone out for an innocent stroll.

She took a deep breath and was about to continue on her way when she heard it again. It was unmistakable this time—the measured sound of footsteps on pavement, louder now and getting steadily closer. She stared, mesmerized, as a figure emerged from the darkness, casting a long shadow on the rain-slicked street. She heard her own voice. “Who’s there?”

The figure kept coming. Without thinking, she threw
her umbrella at her pursuer and watched it clatter harmlessly on the pavement a few feet in front of her. She turned and ran up the side street then veered left into Colville Place, which led back to Charlotte Street. Her heart was pounding in her ears and her lungs felt as if they were going to burst. The narrow street was lined on both sides with tall Georgian houses, some with glowing curtained windows that seemed to her now as remote as distant galaxies. She debated for an instant whether to try pounding on one of the doors to raise help or to make a dash for it. The sight of her pursuer turning the corner behind her settled the matter, but at that instant her right foot caught the raised edge of a flagstone and she fell sprawling to the pavement.

The wet stone was cold on her face. She felt a sharp pain in her left side, and she couldn’t breathe. She could see a couple passing by on Charlotte Street just ahead. She tried to cry out but could only gasp for air. She managed to struggled to her feet and began to jog stiffly, clutching her side, not daring to look back. She could hear a man’s excited voice behind her now.

With a final burst of energy, she turned the corner and ran across Windmill Street, nearly colliding with a man carrying a cane who was standing outside the Fitzrovia.

“Sorry,” she mumbled breathlessly as she dashed into the pub.

Powell sat in his office Monday morning reviewing the Brighton file. As Detective-Sergeant Black had suggested in the pub, the case did have its points of interest. On the evening of March 11, at approximately nine-thirty in the evening, one Edith Smith of Number 134 Jamaica Road SE16 was searching for her dog at Butler’s Wharf, Bermondsey. Upon hearing a commotion, she observed a man attempting to climb out of the Thames. She was unable to provide assistance, and the man fell back into the river where he is presumed to have drowned. She reported the matter to the local police at Southwark Police Station. At ten-forty-three the same evening, a man’s body was recovered from the Thames along the Bermondsey Wall. There was no identification found on the body. The constable attending the scene recognized the deceased and identified him as Richard Brighton, a Labour councillor on Southwark Council, who resided nearby at Number 42 Cardamom Court. When Brighton’s spouse, Helen Brighton, returned home
just before midnight, she was met by police and taken to the mortuary to view the body, where she confirmed the ID. The results of the postmortem, conducted on the morning of March 12 at ten o’clock, indicated a blunt force trauma to the head inflicted by an unknown object. The actual cause of death was drowning. The coroner concluded that Brighton’s death was a homicide perpetrated by a person or persons unknown, possibly during the course of a robbery. Reading between the lines, Powell got the impression that the investigating officer, an Inspector Boles, was not entirely satisfied with this finding. Brighton was thirty-five years old, married, without children, and a schoolteacher by profession, Boles had added as if by way of an afterthought.