The Zig Zag Girl (18 page)

Edgar entered the sitting room. The sun streamed in through the windows illuminating the beflowered furniture, the neatly arranged ornaments and the giant playpen in which Jean lay, gagged, bound and, unmistakeably, dead.

Edgar reached through the bars. Jean’s body was cold. She must have been dead a few hours. Even so, it seemed wrong to leave her like that. The trouble was that the playpen was built for lifting out a baby, not a full-grown woman. Edgar could not get enough grip on the body to lift it out of the cage. Eventually he seized the ornamental poker that lay by the (electric) fire and broke through the bars. He was aware that he was destroying evidence, but he couldn’t leave Jean there, her arms and legs tied together, that terrible expression on her face. He laid her on the hearth-rug and, mechanically, listened for a heartbeat. Nothing. He went into the hall and found a telephone. He dialled 999 and explained the situation in terse policeman’s language. Then he went back into the sitting room to wait.

It wasn’t until he looked at the broken playpen that he remembered the baby. If Jean had been in the pen, what had happened to Barney, the massive baby that Bill had introduced so proudly? As he thought this, he
heard a sound upstairs. A muted, shuffling sound as if something was moving from side to side. He grabbed the poker and climbed the stairs. Three identical doors faced him and from one came the sound, now accompanied by tiny whimpering noises. Edgar pushed open the door. A terrible smell almost pushed him back and, for a second, he thought that he’d find a decomposing corpse behind the door. But then he saw that he was in a bathroom – pink and black bath, pink tiles – and that the smell was coming from the baby who lay, scarlet-faced with distress, rolling in a bath that was smeared with his excrement.

*

When the local police arrived, ten minutes later, they found Edgar in the kitchen, holding the smelly baby wrapped in a towel. It hadn’t seemed right to expose Barney to his mother’s dead body and Edgar certainly didn’t feel up to changing a nappy.

‘Bloody hell,’ said the sergeant. ‘Where did that come from?’

‘It’s the dead woman’s child,’ said Edgar stiffly. He resented the London police for their uniforms and their tactless boots trampling down the path by the wishing well. He resented the flashing blue light on their car and their air of callous competence. He was also extremely relieved to see them.

The sergeant swaggered into the sitting room accompanied by two constables. Two minutes later, he was back, even his boots sounding subdued.

‘What’s going on?’ he said, looking suspiciously from Edgar to the baby. ‘Who the hell are you?’

‘Detective Inspector Edgar Stephens of the Brighton police,’ said Edgar. ‘Who the hell are you?’

‘That’s all very well,’ said the sergeant, but he sounded respectful all the same. ‘How do I know that’s true?’

‘My warrant card’s in my pocket,’ said Edgar. ‘I didn’t want to wake the baby.’ Incredibly enough, Barney had fallen deeply, odorously asleep.

‘O’Shea!’ the sergeant shouted at one of the constables. ‘Come and take hold of this baby.’

‘It’s all right.’ For some reason Edgar felt reluctant to relinquish his hold on the sleeping Barney. ‘I can manage.’ He eased his card out of his pocket and passed it across the table.

The sergeant examined the card with narrowed eyes and then straightened up to the salute. ‘Sergeant Alan Deacon.’

‘Sergeant.’ Edgar nodded at him, feeling ridiculous. Barney snored slightly and Edgar shifted his weight against his shoulder. He was incredibly heavy.

Sergeant Deacon looked towards the sitting room, almost fearfully. He was a large, red-faced man and Edgar couldn’t imagine that he looked fearful very often.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

‘The dead woman is called Jean Cosgrove,’ said Edgar. ‘I arrived about an hour ago and found her lying inside the playpen. I broke down the bars to get her out, but I think she’d been dead some time. The baby was in the bath. He was very distressed, but I don’t think he’s been hurt.’

Edgar watched Deacon absorb these facts and was impressed that he was not distracted by babies, baths or playpens.

‘Why are you here?’ asked the sergeant. ‘Social call, was it?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Edgar.

Deacon waited. The two uniformed policemen flanked him in the doorway, waiting for instructions.

‘I’m investigating another case,’ said Edgar at last. ‘I wanted to see Jean’s husband, Bill Cosgrove.’

‘Is he a suspect?’

‘Not necessarily.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘At work, I suppose.’

Sergeant Deacon looked at Edgar almost pityingly. ‘You’d better telephone him. Give the little fella to me.’

*

Bill arrived as the ambulance was taking Jean away. He saw Edgar in the doorway and ran up to him, grasping his arms painfully.

‘What is it? You said bad news.’

‘Bill, I’m sorry. Jean’s dead.’

Bill let go of Edgar’s arms. His big, handsome face looked completely blank.

‘Dead?’

‘I called in at lunchtime and she was dead. I’m so sorry.’

‘But how …’ For the first time, Bill seemed to register the ambulance in the driveway. He ran up to it and started to bang on the sides. ‘Jean! Jean!’

Edgar caught hold of his arm. ‘They’re taking her to the hospital. You can see her later. I’ll take you there.’

Bill looked at Edgar as if seeing him for the first time.

‘Ed. What are you doing here?’

‘Come into the house. We can talk there.’

‘Barney!’ Bill looked around him wildly. ‘What’s happened to Barney?’

‘He’s fine. A policewoman’s looking after him.’

Sergeant Deacon had summoned a WPC from the local station. She had given Barney a bath and changed his nappy and was now playing with him on the sitting room floor. Bill surveyed the scene with a kind of dumb horror.

‘What happened to the playpen?’

‘Mr Cosgrove.’ Deacon stepped forward. ‘I have to ask you some questions. Janice,’ to the policewoman, ‘make us some tea, there’s a good girl.’

Janice got up obediently, hoisted Barney onto her hip and went out of the room. Bill watched them go. He made no attempt to take his son.

‘Mr Cosgrove. I’m Sergeant Deacon from the Wembley Police. I believe you know Detective Inspector Stephens?’

‘Ed? Yes, I …’

‘We need to ask you about your movements today.’

‘Why?’

‘You’d better sit down.’ Deacon gently pushed Bill into one of the floral armchairs. ‘Mr Cosgrove, your wife was murdered. We need to find out who did it.’

Bill looked at Edgar. ‘Murdered?’

Edgar nodded. ‘Strangled, we think.’

‘Oh God.’ Bill covered his face with his hands. Edgar wondered what he had done when Diablo told him about Charis. What did Bill feel, now that both the women he had loved were dead?

‘So,’ persisted Deacon. ‘Where were you this morning, at about ten o’clock?’

Bill looked up. ‘At work. Surely you don’t think …’

‘Where do you work, Mr Cosgrove?’

‘At GEC. I’m a general manager there.’

‘So people can vouch for you?’

‘Of course.’ Bill was getting angry now, his big hands clenched on the arms of his chair. ‘I went to work at eight. I stayed there all morning until I got the telephone call from Edgar. And I come home to find my wife’s been murdered. My wife …’

‘What did you do for lunch?’ asked Deacon.

‘I normally come home.’ (Bingo, thought Edgar.) ‘But there was a rush on, so I stayed at work. One of the secretaries got me a sandwich.’

If Bill had come home for lunch, he would have been the one to find his wife. Would he then also have been a suspect? Did the killer – the thought was so dizzying that Edgar had to hold on to the back of the chair – know that he, Edgar, was on his way? Was Jean’s body meant for him to find?

Janice came back into the room. She placed a cup of tea
in front of Bill and then, with matter-of-fact kindness, put Barney in his lap. ‘Here’s your little boy for you.’

Bill sobbed into his son’s hair.

*

It was past midnight when Edgar got home to Brighton. He had taken Bill to the hospital and waited in the ‘visitors’ room’ of the mortuary while Bill said goodbye to his wife. Then he had driven Bill back home where his sister was waiting for him. She was a large, capable woman and Edgar felt relieved to be leaving Bill – and Barney – in her charge. His clothes still smelt of the baby.

Then Edgar had driven to Wembley police station where he had put Deacon and his boss, an Inspector Jarvis, in the picture about the Brighton murders.

‘So you think the same bloke may have killed Mrs Cosgrove?’ said Jarvis, a sharp-looking Londoner with a nice line in understated irony.

‘I think it’s possible,’ said Edgar. He explained about the photograph. ‘Two people in the picture are dead now.’

‘
For my next trick, The Wolf Trap
,’ said Deacon. ‘What did that mean?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Edgar, ‘but Jean was in a kind of cage. A friend of mine, an old magician, said that The Wolf Trap could be a kind of escapology act where someone escapes from a cage.’

‘Mrs Cosgrove wasn’t doing much escaping,’ said Jarvis dryly. ‘You’d better watch yourself, hadn’t you, Inspector Stephens?’

Would things have been different if he had warned Jean
about the photograph? wondered Edgar as he took the Brighton Road, that straight thoroughfare once famous for highwaymen and footpads. Would Bill have stayed with her? Would he have prevented her from opening the door to a murderer? Because that was what had happened, Edgar was sure of it. Deacon’s men had found two teacups in the sitting room and Edgar would bet his life on one containing traces of belladonna. None of the neighbours had seen anyone approaching the house, everyone in the respectable suburb was respectably minding their own business that Friday lunchtime. Edgar thought of his mother setting out to visit the incurables. Jean must have been killed while he sat drinking tea with Rose and trying not to look at the family photographs. Could anyone have known that he was on his way to see Bill? Had the body been placed behind bars for him to find?

The roads were quiet at night. The journey took barely two hours. There were still a few drunks staggering out of the Brighton pubs, but the town was mostly silent and the moon was silver on the sea. Edgar drove up the hill to his house thanking God that he wasn’t on foot. He was so tired that he could barely think. He just wanted to lie down on the sofa and sleep for a week. He let himself quietly into the flat. The last thing he wanted was to wake Diablo and have to tell the whole awful story. There’d be time enough for that tomorrow. He stood in the hallway listening for the old magician’s distinctive snores. Silence. An owl called from the garden. Gently Edgar pushed open the bedroom door. The bed was as smooth and empty as the sea.

‘So the old boy’s done a moonlight flit?’

‘Well, there’s no sign of him. And his suitcase has gone. You know, that terrible cardboard affair.’

Max smiled, but he was looking rather troubled. It was Saturday morning and they were in Edgar’s office at the police station. Usually the station was quiet at the weekend, but today, with another possible murder by the Conjuror Killer, the place was buzzing. Frank Hodges had already called in to tell Edgar that the force was becoming a laughing stock and he would hold Edgar personally responsible if the killer struck again. ‘He might kill me,’ muttered Edgar, ‘then we’d all be happy.’

Max’s appearance had caused rather a stir. Word got round that Max Mephisto was in DI Stephens’ office and at least three WPCs knocked on the door and offered to make tea. Edgar found out later that there was another rumour that Max had come to confess to the murders and, in his dark suit and startlingly white shirt, Max did look appropriately Mephistophelean. When Edgar told
him about Jean, he put his hand over his eyes, but when he raised his head, his eyes were tearless and rather hard.

‘What about Bill? Could it be him?’

‘He was at work. He had an alibi for the whole morning.’

‘When he came to see me at the Old Ship, it struck me that he could be an ugly customer if roused.’

Edgar remembered looking at Bill’s hands, clenched into fists on the flowery armchair. ‘I had the same thought,’ he admitted, ‘but I can’t really see Bill as a murderer. Why would he kill Jean? He seemed really happy with her.’

‘He had a motive for killing Tony,’ said Max. ‘If only we knew what Tony had on him …’

‘And now we’ve got Diablo on the loose.’

‘Yes.’ Max was silent for a moment. He got out his cigarette case, glanced up at Edgar’s ‘No Smoking’ sign and grimaced. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I was on the bill with Nosmo King.’

‘I’m still not going to let you smoke in here.’

‘I saw Diablo yesterday,’ said Max. ‘He was all dressed up in a white suit. He didn’t see me, but apparently he’d been at the theatre asking about Ruby.’

‘About Ruby? But he doesn’t know Ruby.’

‘As far as we know he doesn’t.’

‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Edgar, ‘what if it’s all an act, the forgetfulness, the drinking? What if Diablo’s sharper than we think?’

‘It can’t be an act,’ said Max. ‘You saw him in that nightclub in Yarmouth. The man’s a mess.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Edgar. ‘I keep remembering that Diablo used to be a serious actor. Remember he kept going on about playing Hamlet? What if he’s been acting all this time?’

‘Seventy-odd years is rather a long time to play a part. Diablo’s been the same as long as I’ve known him. He’s got a hell of a reputation in the business.’

‘Well,’ said Edgar, ‘if he’s not the killer then he’s in danger. And we don’t know where he is.’

Max frowned. ‘Do you really think the killer – whoever he is – is picking us off one by one?’

‘Think about the photograph. Tony’s dead, Jean’s dead. There’s only you, me and Diablo left.’

‘And the Major.’

‘Yes, and the Major. I’ll have to tell him about Jean. Try to get him to be careful. He can’t just dismiss it now.’

‘You know the Major. He can dismiss anything.’

‘Maybe. But I’ve got to try.’

Max gave an odd, one-sided smile. ‘What about you, Ed? Are you going to be careful?’

‘I’ll be all right. I’m a policeman. It’s you who ought to watch out. You really shouldn’t go to Hastings. Everyone knows you’ll be there. The bills are up everywhere.’

Max sighed. ‘Believe me, I’d rather not go. I don’t exactly feel in the mood for performing magic tricks on Hastings pier. But, if I don’t appear, I’m finished.’

‘When are you leaving?’

‘Tomorrow. Sunday’s changeover day, remember?’

‘Well, at least let me know your address. I’ll have the Hastings police keep an eye on you.’

Max smiled. A proper smile this time. ‘Now why doesn’t that make me feel any safer?’

*

When Max had left, causing the WPCs to flutter like hens who have caught sight of a fox, Edgar got out his notes.

Edgar looked at the list for a few minutes before adding, in capitals, FIND DIABLO. He didn’t like the way that people involved in the case kept disappearing. Ethel had left her home on the Isle of Wight and had been found a year later, cut into pieces. Why? There had to be some link between Ethel and the Magic Men that went beyond her connection with Max. Ruby had twirled her way into Max’s life and then vanished. Who was Ruby? Was she just a pretty girl (here Edgar stamped firmly on his own feelings) who wanted a career in showbusiness, or was there more to her appearance and disappearance than that? And Diablo, who had sunk below the waves for so many years, had resurfaced and was now lost again. Or rather, he wasn’t lost, he was wandering around Brighton asking after Ruby. Why?

The questions formed and re-formed themselves,
growing like the heads of the Hydra. Edgar, sitting in his office in the bowels of the old building with the ghosts of the police station around him, felt as if he were just on the verge of understanding everything. If only he could put together the final pieces …

The phone rang. Edgar was informed that a Sergeant Alan Deacon was on the line for him. For a moment, the name meant nothing, but then he remembered a suburban kitchen and a baby lying heavily in his arms.

‘Deacon! Good to hear from you.’

‘Got some information for you, Inspector Stephens.’

Well, actual information would make a nice change.

‘We’ve had a sighting of a man seen at the Cosgroves’ house at midday yesterday.’

‘That’s great.’

Deacon laughed sardonically. ‘You won’t think so when you hear. It’s the usual witness rubbish.’ He put on a high-pitched voice. ‘“A young man, quite slim and slight, wearing a coat and peaked cap.” Nothing useful, no distinguishing features or anything like that.’

Nevertheless, it was interesting. The man who bought the flowers and the sword-purchaser had also been described as small. The clothes were the same too, coat and peaked cap. Could it be the same person?

‘What was this man doing?’ he asked.

‘Hurrying away from the house apparently. Woman couldn’t see his face properly because of the cap.’

‘Odd to be wearing a coat and hat in summer.’

‘Yes, that’s what we thought. Worth following up anyway.’

Putting the phone down, Edgar thought he would follow it up immediately. He’d go back to the flower-seller and the antiques shop, see if they had remembered anything else about the man they described. Was the small man the killer?’ That adjective couldn’t really be applied to anyone involved with the case. Max and Bill were both tall. The Major was short (‘Napoleon complex,’ Diablo used to say), but he could hardly be described as slight. Diablo was also above average height and, in any case, it was hard to think of his shambling gait being taken for a young man’s walk.

*

The flower-seller at the station was doing a brisk trade.

‘It’s Saturday, you see,’ she said. ‘People come to visit their loved ones in their old people’s homes by the sea and they want to bring them some flowers. Make up for neglecting them the rest of the time.’ She tied some asters with a flourish. ‘No, thank
you
, madam.’

‘Do you remember me?’ asked Edgar. ‘You came to see me a few weeks ago. About the body parts found in Left Luggage.’

‘Hardly something you’d forget, is it?’ said the woman. ‘Lovely roses. Five for half a crown.’

‘I was wondering if you had remembered anything else? Sometimes things do occur to people quite a long time after the event.’ He attempted an engaging smile.

The woman tied a bow absent-mindedly. ‘He had small hands,’ she said at last. ‘I always notice hands. I thought
he was young at first. He had a young voice. But then I saw his hands. They were old hands.’

‘What do you mean “old hands”?’

The woman shrugged impatiently. ‘Oh, you know. Old. Wrinkled.’

‘But his face wasn’t old?’

‘I don’t think so, but I couldn’t see his face very well. He was wearing a cap. I told you that before.’ She glared at Edgar as if he were trying to catch her out.

‘Yes, you did.’ The man leaving the Cosgroves’ house had been wearing a peaked cap. He had been described as young, but the witness hadn’t been able to see his face, let alone his hands. Who was this strange being with a child’s voice and an old person’s hands? For some reason Edgar thought of a woman he had once seen in a variety show. She had been quite old, but dressed up as a schoolboy. Watching her sing ‘Don’t tell Mamma’ had been a genuinely disturbing experience. What was her name? Max would know.

‘Thank you,’ he said to the flower-seller. ‘You will let me know if you remember anything else?’

‘You’ll be top of my list,’ said the woman rather enigmatically. But she did present him with a carnation for his buttonhole. ‘Nothing sets off a suit like a nice carnation.’

*

Ethel’s lodgings were in Trafalgar Street, one of the steep roads leading up from the station. The pub at the top of the hill was called the Belle Vue, but it was hard to see what was belle about the view over the railway tracks and the
gasworks and the rows of houses that stretched as far as the downs. Edgar stood for a moment, leaning on the wall, trying to get his breath back. Why on earth did old people retire to Brighton? The hills alone were enough to kill them.

The lodging house was number 159, a neat end-of-terrace with window boxes and a discreet sign advertising rooms to let. Edgar remembered the landlady from his previous visit. Mrs Steptoe her name was, though he was pretty sure that she wasn’t a Mrs and that her rigid respectability hid a pretty racy past. She greeted him now with extreme civility.

‘Inspector Stephens. How nice to see you. No, it isn’t an imposition at all. Would you care to take tea?’

Edgar accepted the tea because experience told him that this was always a good move. Mrs Steptoe presented the drinks on a silver tray that would have impressed Edgar’s mother. There were also two small biscuits on a plate. Edgar felt his stomach rumble. It was two o’clock and he hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

‘If it doesn’t distress you too much, Mrs Steptoe,’ he said, trying for the boyish grin again. ‘I’d like to ask you some more questions about Mrs Williams.’

‘You still haven’t caught the killer then,’ said Mrs Steptoe, with an exaggerated shudder. ‘Poor soul. What a terrible way to die.’

‘We’ve got several new leads,’ said Edgar, trying to sound as if this were true. What he really had was two more bodies. Jean’s murder hadn’t hit the newspapers yet and, in any case, he was hoping that no one would
make the connection with the Conjuror Killer. He took a photograph from his pocket.

‘I know you said that Mrs Williams didn’t have any callers,’ he said. ‘But I wondered if you had seen this man.’ The photograph was a publicity still showing Tony in full mesmerist mode, arms crossed, eyes staring. Mrs Steptoe recoiled slightly.

‘He might have said that he was a relative,’ said Edgar, just to give her an escape route. He had sent the same photograph to Michael Williams and had received a curt note back: ‘I’ve never seen this man in my life. If Ethel knew him, she didn’t mention him to me.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Mrs Steptoe. ‘Like I say, Mrs Williams didn’t have any gentlemen visitors.’

‘What did she do all day?’ asked Edgar. ‘And what about the evenings? Did she go out in the evenings?’

‘She was out most of the day,’ said Mrs Steptoe. ‘I assumed she had a job. She stayed in most evenings. She went to the pub sometimes. Now that I can’t like in a woman.’

‘Which pub?’ asked Edgar. ‘The Belle Vue?’

‘No. There’s a more respectable place around the corner. The Battle of Trafalgar.’

‘Thank you. I’ll call in there on my way back. Can I give you my card? Do telephone me if anything does occur to you. Anything, however trivial it might seem.’

Mrs Steptoe assured him that she would. As he gathered up the picture of Tony, she gestured towards it and said, almost in a whisper, ‘Is that the killer? I can always tell. It’s in the eyes, you know.’