Princes Gate (22 page)

“A delivery, Mr Norton. I’m delivering myself to you for a little chat. May I come in?” Owen produced a grim smile. His stomach was already over the threshold but Norton held the door against it.

“What the heck possessed you to come here? If you need to talk to me we could surely do that better at your club.”

Owen pressed his stomach hard against the door. “What has possessed me to come here is firstly that my nephew is dead and secondly that the police are pestering me. I’d like to have a little word with you on both matters, alright?”

Norton stepped back, allowing the remainder of Owen to gain entry. “Johnny’s dead. My God. How?”

“He had his throat slit on Thursday. How come you don’t know about it and how come you didn’t mention it to me last night?”

“I didn’t know about it at all. I didn’t go into the Embassy yesterday. I wasn’t feeling so well.”

“Feeling a bit rough after Thursday, eh?”

“No, I just wasn’t feeling… anyway that’s neither here nor there. Come on. You’d better come in.” Norton led the way through to his drawing room.

“Good God, Johnny dead, eh? My condolences. Do they know who did it?”

Owen sank slowly into an armchair. “They haven’t a clue. Do you?”

“Me? God, no. Why would I have a clue?” Norton went to his drinks cabinet and poured himself another whisky. He held a glass up to Owen who declined.

“You might have a clue because you did it. Perhaps you and Johnny fell out, eh? Had an argument over your little arrangements together. I know you’ve got quite a temper. Perhaps you lost it.”

Norton shook his head vehemently before seating himself opposite Owen. “You know I’m not the sort to slit a man’s throat, Owen. I did have some words with Johnny occasionally. He was a damn greedy fellow. Always asking for more money than I thought we’d agreed. But then you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”

Owen grunted. “He had a lot of expenses to cover.”

“Yes, well, still, I’m hardly likely to slit his throat over a few extra expenses, am I?”

Owen shifted in his seat and sighed, then pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. “Poor Johnny. Too big for his boots he was. Must have tried one of his tricks on the wrong customer. Silly bugger. Or perhaps it had something to do with your friend Joan, eh? The police were pestering me about her too.”

“You didn’t tell them about me going to your club, did you?”

“Didn’t need to tell them. They saw you there themselves. The two coppers on the case were there last night.”

Norton stared gloomily into his glass.

“Look Mr Norton, I’d like to know who did Johnny in but I think I can make some enquiries of my own to do that. I’d appreciate any information you can provide. However, what I don’t want is the police buzzing around my affairs and Johnny’s affairs like flies, and I’m sure you don’t either. Now, you’ve got some influential friends and I suggest you ask them to get the coppers to hold back. If you can’t, then I’ve got some cards to play too but, well, I’d rather keep them in reserve.”

“I’ll speak to my friends. See what I can do. Meanwhile, I suggest you tell everyone at your club to keep their traps shut.”

“Don’t teach me to suck eggs, Mr Norton. All my people know what will happen if they go against me. I think you’d better worry more about your fancy friends.” Owen managed, at his second attempt, to rise from his chair and moved to the corridor with Norton in tow.

“I saw your poncy buddy Freddie Douglas downstairs. With his spick friend.”

“Yes, we had a little business to discuss.”

“Very lucky fellow, Freddie Douglas. He’s just about to inherit a fortune from his father, did you know?”

“Someone mentioned it, yes.”

The door was opened and Owen squeezed through. “Oh, yes. I almost forgot. You’d better give me back the key.”

“What key?”

“You know which key. It’s not as if you’ll have any use for it now. Wouldn’t be very wise, would it?”

“Wait a minute.”

He disappeared down the corridor and returned with a key on a piece of string.

Norton watched sulkily as Owen waddled away. “I’ll, er, still be getting the latest package, won’t I? I mean, when it’s ready.”

Owen rolled his eyes and snorted. “Yeh, you’ll be getting it. Don’t worry.”

Reardon was snoring gently in his chair. Owen kicked him and he slowly came to life. “Come on, you decrepit old git, I’ve given Mr Norton a clean bill of health, for now.”

CHAPTER 8

Sunday February 4th

In the distance, church bells were ringing in the City. The sound always reminded him of his days as a choirboy in the small Catholic church in Limehouse. Merlin had not been a very good choirboy. Briefly he had had a reasonable treble voice but his voice had broken early and never really settled into anything else. Still his father had insisted, and his father’s will was not to be brooked.

Last night he had dreamed about his father who was riding an ageing piebald through a bleak landscape like his hero Don Quixote. In the middle of a long poetic declamation, Harry Merlin had disappeared in a puff of smoke, rather like he had in real life. When the smoke had settled, he’d seen his brother Charlie emerging, bloodstained, from a muddy trench, asking for his help. His sister Maria had then appeared from somewhere, guiding him away from the battlefield to a room in which various uniformed men, including Hitler and Franco, had been playing cards. He had just been asked to join them when he’d awoken with a parched mouth.

He sat down at his desk and methodically laid out his own notebook, the notebook he’d taken from Bridges on Saturday morning, a clean sheet of paper and a pencil. He drew a straight line down the centre of the paper. At the top to the left of the line he wrote down Joan Harris’ name, and at the top on the right Johnny Morgan’s. He flicked through both notebooks then stared for a while at the ceiling before picking up his pencil. Under Joan’s name he wrote: “Johnny Morgan, Kathleen Donovan, The Blue Angel, Arthur Norton”. Glancing at his own notes, he looked at the inscription he’d found in Joan’s copy of
Huckleberry Finn
. He turned back to his list and wrote in the Harris column, “Who is J (inscription)?” He skimmed through Bridges’ notes again and wrote down, “Letter to Joan (upset/old ladies)”. He sucked on his pencil. Turning to the right column he listed the same names and added that of Morrie Owen. Staring up at Van Gogh’s cornfields he ran over his conversations with the Assistant Commissioner. Picking up his pencil again, he wrote across the central line, “Love/Sex?” and beneath that he wrote, “Secrets?”

Sitting back in his chair he stared at the paper for a while. He had an uncomfortable feeling that this case was driving him rather than as it should be, vice versa. He needed to assert greater control over the still somewhat amorphous set of facts and events. Leaning forward he turned the paper over and wrote with a flourish, “Action” at the top of the page. Under this he wrote:
Identify J (Johnny Morgan – unlikely – ask Kathleen Donovan) Find letter (JH’s belongings stored downstairs)
Speak to Vice about Morrie Owen

Merlin turned the paper over and stared at it again before adding to his ‘Action’ list:
Find out owner of Johnny’s mews house.
Give Norton a wide berth for the moment but put tail on? (Tail on Morrie Owen?)

He heard the sound of marching boots outside and walked over to the window. A long line of khaki-clad soldiers were making their way in the crisp morning sun past Scotland Yard, heading towards Charing Cross and then, Merlin guessed, to France. He wondered how many of those boys would survive until the spring.

Just after noon he hopped on a bus and made his way to Fulham. He got off on the New King’s Road, crossed over Eel Brook Common and turned down a side road, arriving promptly, as promised, at one o’clock at the end of terrace house. His sister-in-law smiled and gave him a warm embrace, while his nephew tugged excitedly at his trouser legs.

Lunch was, as always, excellent. Beatrice had somehow got hold of a huge leg of lamb and cooked it in the Spanish style, just as he and Charlie loved it. Unusually for his generation, their father had liked to cook and Aggie Merlin had been happy, at occasional Sunday lunches, to make way for him in the kitchen. Lamb was his father’s speciality and Bea had learned well from Charlie how to replicate the recipe.

Afterwards Frank Merlin sat, stuffed, in Charlie’s armchair with his four-year-old nephew on his lap. He’d promised to take him out onto Parson’s Green with a football once he’d had his cup of tea. For now, thankfully, young Paul was dozing, his stomach also full of meat and rice pudding.

Bea emerged from the kitchen and removed her apron. “A glass of port wine for you?”

“No thanks, dear. A cup of tea will be fine. No rush though. Rest your feet for a moment.”

She fell back into the other armchair in the front room of the spruce little house which Charlie had been able to buy after his promotion to Assistant Manager at the local Martin’s Bank.

“I’m sure you’ll hear something soon, Bea.”

“Let’s hope. It doesn’t sound as if things are progressing very well over there, does it?”

“No. It doesn’t.”

Little of the anxiety she felt for her husband was reflected in her face which, pretty and serene as always, returned Merlin’s sympathetic gaze stoically. “What will be, will be. Now what of you, Frank? Have you stirred your stumps yet?”

Paul quivered and whimpered softly as Merlin shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “How do you mean?”

“You know very well what I mean. It’s time you got yourself out of those lodgings and into a proper place of your own. It’s not as if you can’t afford it.”

Merlin attempted to loosen his trouser belt but was unable to achieve this with the young boy on top of him. “I’m quite happy where I am, as you know.”

“Nonsense. Time you put the past behind you and a new place of your own will help you do that. And, with no disrespect to Alice, time you found yourself a new woman too. I’m sure she wouldn’t have wanted you to mope around in misery forever.”

Merlin decided that it was best to say nothing. He’d already had this conversation with Bea several times. She was right of course and he’d already accepted the wisdom of her words but he was too stubborn to admit it to her face.

Bea ignored his silence. “Just look at how happy young Sam is now he’s hooked up with Iris. And he was miserable too but he got up and did something about it.”

Bea had a soft spot for Sam Bridges as she had been an orphan as well. They had both done well after dreadful beginnings.

Paul stretched out an arm and opened his eyes. Merlin grasped his opportunity. “Time for that game of football I think, eh, Paul? Hold the tea for the moment, Bea. Back in a while. I’ll have that cup of tea then, please.”

Paul trailed him happily out of the door, ball in hand, as his mother shook her head ruefully.

The Florida sun was high in the sky but there was a cool breeze and the Ambassador shivered a little. He put down the papers with irritation and stared briefly at the sea twinkling beyond the garden wall before raising his hand. A small, white-jacketed man emerged promptly from the house. “Bring me my tennis sweater, Manuel – and an orange juice. Oh, and get me Diedrickson on the phone – his home number’s in the book on the hall table.”

He noticed a new sunspot on the hand he had raised and made a mental note to fix a check-up with his dermatologist when he got back to Boston. Manuel re-emerged holding a telephone receiver which he plugged into a wall-socket by the marble table.

“The Señor is on the line, sir.”

“Diedrickson. What are you doing to me? The account’s down twenty per cent in three months. What’s that? Well I’m sorry if I’m interrupting your lunch but I think servicing your most important client might perhaps feature higher in your priorities than knocking back Long Island Teas or whatever else you people drink in East Hampton. Oh, very well, you didn’t do too badly for me last year so go ahead and have your lunch. Call me tomorrow, alright?”

“Something wrong, honey?” A small blonde head rose from its resting place on a lounger at the far end of the pool. The head was attached to a tanned body shown off to near perfection by a tight polka-dotted cream swimsuit.