A Woman Unknown (13 page)

Sykes sat down again. ‘I can’t do that. I’m sworn in as a special constable.’

‘Thanks to me.’ She smiled sweetly. ‘Remember who you work for, Mr Sykes. When the circus has left town, you and I will be on the high wire together again.’

Sykes knew when he was beaten.

Sykes is an excellent chap in a crisis, but very grumpy if he misses his meals. He came out of the hotel onto King Street, where I was waiting for him.

‘Come on, Mr Sykes. I’ll give you a lift home.’

‘That’s all right. I have use of the motorbike.’

‘Then sit with me for five minutes. I want to talk to you.’

He climbed into the car.

‘Did you give the envelope to Marcus?’

‘The chief inspector is up at CID offices. He’ll get it as soon as he comes back.’

‘I’m curious. What happened to McFarlane, the Scot who was staying here and went to York races with Hartigan?’

‘Word is he took a train back north of the border, directly after the races, with his order for whisky, no doubt.’

Canny fellow. And since Marcus had told me that people in high places with connections to distilleries would not want to see a slump in sales, I guessed that any activity by Customs and Excise would bear a light touch.

‘Are you enjoying tracking Mr Hartigan?’

Sykes grinned. ‘Money for old rope. If I’d had this kind of job on the force, I would have stayed put. Now can I go home for my dinner?’

‘You said earlier that you spotted Hartigan in Roundhay? Was he admiring Roundhay Park Lake?’

‘Oddly enough, he has been doing exactly what he said he would – visiting relatives. He went to Ashville Nursing Home, to see his mother, and took a priest with him.’

‘So he really does have a good reason for being here.’

Sykes nodded. ‘And you’ll like this. I saw a couple we know, on their Sunday outing, nice as ninepence, stepping from the tram hand in hand.’

‘Who?’

‘One guess.’

‘The Fitzpatricks?’

‘None other.’

Something clicked. Deirdre Fitzpatrick had taken her mother to a nursing home. Where? And when would she visit her? On Sunday afternoon.

‘What was Mrs Fitzpatrick’s maiden name?’

Sykes gave me a puzzled look. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Where else has Hartigan been?’

He shrugged. ‘I only started following him yesterday dinnertime, remember. He went to a boxing gym on York Road.’

‘Before that?’

‘There were a few hours when nobody followed him, when the chief inspector was starting up the murder enquiry.’

‘And where else? What about Thursday, Friday?’

‘Nothing’s written down. It’s in the chief inspector’s head I expect.’

It was entirely possible that Cyril and Deirdre Fitzpatrick were stepping out to feed the ducks on Roundhay Park Lake, but I doubted that. Nursing homes allow no more than two visitors at a time. Sykes had watched Hartigan leave. Shortly after, the Fitzpatricks arrive in Roundhay; to visit her mother in the nursing home?

‘Did you see which direction the Fitzpatricks took when they got off the tram?’

Sykes shook his head. ‘I assumed they were going to the park.’ His eyes widened as he picked up my unspoken suggestion.

‘You think they were going to the nursing home that Hartigan and the priest had just left?’

I nodded. ‘And if I’m right, and there’s a connection, and they had arranged to share the visiting hours, what else might they have coordinated?’

Sykes said, ‘I could try and find out Mrs Fitzpatrick’s maiden name.’

‘That might take too long. There is a quicker way.’ I got out of the car. ‘You wait here. I’ll make a telephone call, and then I want you to tell me exactly what Fitzpatrick said when you reported to him on the day I followed Deirdre.’

I went back into the hotel. Someone was ahead of me in the telephone booth, having a long conversation, and refusing to catch my eye.

I crossed the lobby and tapped on the manager’s door. He surprised me by being delighted to see me.

‘Mr Naylor, would you oblige me greatly by letting
me make a private telephone call from your office? The booth is occupied.’

‘Of course.’

He hovered.

‘Private.’

‘Yes, yes. I’ll wait outside.’

The operator connected me to Ashville Nursing Home before I had properly formulated what I might say. Thinking quickly, I claimed to be a neighbour of Mr and Mrs Fitzpatrick. I would be passing by shortly, and able to give them a lift. Were they still visiting Mrs Fitzpatrick’s mother?

The reply was not long in coming. Mr Fitzpatrick had left. Mrs Fitzpatrick was still with her mother.

Knowing the answer but wanting to confirm the connection, I asked, ‘What about Mrs Hartigan’s son? Is he still there?’

‘Oh he left some good while ago.’

I thanked my helpful informant and rang off.

As Marcus rightly said, the description of the woman who had shared Runcie’s bed could fit a thousand women, including Deirdre Fitzpatrick.

I thanked the manager, who was standing very close to the door.

He leaned close. ‘Mrs Shackleton, I wonder if I might impose for a moment, a quiet word?’

A quiet word was the last thing I wanted, but he was barring my exit, and perhaps he had something important to say.

We slid back into his office, but I refused a seat. Just as well, as he merely wanted to get off his chest complaints about how much space CID took up and how
the sergeant went into the kitchen in the middle of the night, fried an egg and made a mess.

I managed to make a sympathetic comment and tore myself away.

Finally, I was onto something.

Deirdre and Hartigan, in the hotel at the same time: a murderer and a mystery woman.

When I went outside, Sykes was no longer in the car. I looked about and saw him on the corner, beckoning me towards the alley.

He said, ‘I didn’t want to draw attention to myself by sitting in the car like a show-off. Did you make your telephone call?’

‘I did. The Fitzpatricks went to the same nursing home. She is still there, with her mother. It was Deirdre in the hotel with Everett Runcie, I feel sure of it. And Hartigan is her brother.’

Sykes stared at me. ‘If you’re right …’

‘I am.’

‘… what’s the significance?’

‘I don’t know yet.’

‘It must have been convenient for Hartigan to be called back to his dying mother. He used it as cover for buying whisky. Wilson hinted that while Hartigan was in London, he ordered thousands of gallons of gin.’

‘So he killed two birds with one stone.’

‘Two birds or three?’ Sykes said thoughtfully. ‘Did he kill Runcie?’

Somehow that seemed too neat. What connection could there be between Hartigan and Runcie, I wondered. ‘Does he look like a strangler to you, Mr Sykes?’

‘No. He’s bantam weight. But I’ve learned a bit about his relatives over the past twenty-four hours. There are cousins, aunts and uncles, some in the church and some involved with the boxing club I told you about, and with market stalls. Heavyweights. Hands for hire. Leeds police supplied the chief inspector with names. They must have missed Mrs Fitzpatrick off the list of known relations because of her change of name.’

She was the one who interested me most.

‘Tell me, Mr Sykes, on the day I followed Deirdre, when you went to see Fitzpatrick and gave him my report. How did he take it?’

Sykes stared at a pigeon that alighted on the cobbles and pecked at a crack. ‘He did go on a bit. To tell you the truth, I whisked him up to the Chemic for a pint. He wanted chapter and verse, and yet he was terrified of being seen with me by some of his fellow printers in a city centre pub, or by some neighbour in Kirkstall, as if they might earwig, or recognise me as ex job.’

‘What else passed between you?’

‘He seemed to have dropped his worries about shoplifting.’

‘Those were for our benefit, I think, to make sure we took up his grievances. Anything else?’

Sykes’s long pause told me there certainly was something else.

‘I didn’t tell you because I knew you wanted an end of it, and as you said, what she gets up to is not our business.’

‘Go on.’

‘Two things. You know Fitzpatrick works on the local paper as a compositor?’

‘Yes, he said.’

‘There’s a photographer on the paper who had a word in Fitzpatrick’s shell-like.’

‘Don’t tell me. Len Diamond?’

‘How did you know?’

‘He’s a brilliant photographer. I’ve learned a lot from looking at his work and listening to him talk about technique. But if he were a woman, he’d be called the world’s worst gossip.’

Sykes lit a cigarette. ‘That fits. Diamond told Fitzpatrick that he’d bumped into Mrs Fitzpatrick on Leeds Bridge. Diamond recognised her from seeing her last year at Kirkstall Abbey. I suppose she is the kind of woman a man would remember.’

‘So Len Diamond saw Deirdre out and about. That doesn’t sound very significant.’

‘It was to Fitzpatrick. Because it turned out that this was on one of the Fridays when his wife didn’t come home. He could not decide whether the photographer was hinting that she was meeting another man.’

‘You said there were two things. What else?’

‘Apparently, Deirdre brought something home and forgot about it. Fitzpatrick seized on it, and he had it in his pocket – a table napkin, embroidered with a letter
A
. He asked me to find out where it might have come from and whether she was eating out in restaurants. I refused.’

I felt a sudden chill. The sun did not reach this alley. Even the pigeon had flown. A terrible stillness settled around us.

‘Are you all right?’ Sykes asked.

‘Yes. Someone walked over my grave. Did you ever see
Othello
?’

‘I know the story, but I never saw it.’

‘Iago produces Desdemona’s handkerchief, as proof of her infidelity. Othello is so convinced of Desdemona’s guilt that he strangles her.’

Sykes’s matter-of-factness can be very reassuring. ‘I think the napkin’s from the Adelphi. That’s just across Leeds Bridge. Maybe Diamond took her to supper and was having a laugh at Fitzpatrick’s expense.’

‘Do you still have a note of the occasions when Fitzpatrick said she spent nights away from home?’

Sykes tapped the notebook in his breast pocket.

‘Good. Here’s what we’re going to do. I want you to call at the Adelphi and make a few discreet enquiries.’ I delved into my satchel. ‘Take this photograph of the Fitzpatricks’ wedding, but make sure you only show Deirdre’s picture. Find out if she stayed there.’

‘When? I’ve to be back at the Metropole for six.’

‘Plenty of time. I’ll meet you back here just before six. I’m going to pay Mr Fitzpatrick a visit. Since his wife was still at the nursing home, I can be there before she gets back. We’re missing something, and I’m not sure what.’

‘I know what I’m missing. My Yorkshire pudding.’

‘Have it cold later. Sprinkle it with sugar.’