Dance of Death (21 page)

‘I came here because of your link to Mr and Mrs Wilder.’

‘You’ve heard all there is to hear on the topic.’

‘Not quite, sir – you haven’t solved one irritating little mystery.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘I’ve spoken to Mrs Wilder more than once and we’ve talked about various people in the dance world. Given the fact that you and she were once commercial partners, isn’t it remarkable that she never once spoke your name? I don’t claim that she still worships God,’ said Marmion, pointedly, ‘but you’d think she’d remember someone as unforgettable as you.’

While she could not hear what was being said, Iris Goodliffe had seen that Alice and Keedy were having a heated row. She knew better than to ask what it had been about. For the best part of twenty minutes, they walked on in silence. There were a few incidents to deal with and that spared them the awkwardness of talking together. It was Alice who finally spoke up.

‘Thank you, Iris.’

‘I’m saying nothing.’

‘I’m sorry you had to see that.’

‘You don’t have to apologise,’ said Iris. ‘And you don’t have to tell me anything. But you were right about Sergeant Keedy. He
is
tall and good-looking.’

Alice winced. ‘We had a silly disagreement, that’s all.’

‘I have those all the time with my sister.’

‘It was my fault.’

‘I’d never admit that. I always blame Evelyn.’

‘Do you mind if we talk about something else?’

‘No,’ said Iris. ‘We haven’t decided what film to see tonight.’

‘You choose.’

‘We want something we both like, Alice.’

‘What’s on at the moment?’

Iris laughed. ‘Oh, I can tell you that.’

She reeled off a list of films they might see and they discussed their respective appeal. Fortunately, they seemed to have similar tastes. Iris was in her element, offering all kinds of suggestions and recalling favourite films from her mental scrapbook. Alice threw in the occasional comment but she was not really listening to her friend. The argument with Keedy had worried her, creating a rift that went alarmingly deep. It had all happened so quickly and she was partly responsible. They’d never spoken to each other like that before. When they did have disagreements, they made sure that they took place in private. Alice was desperate to repair the damage but she had no idea whatsoever how she should go about it.

‘I loved him in his last film,’ said Iris. ‘I’ve always wanted a man who could sweep me off my feet like that.’

‘So did I,’ murmured Alice. ‘And I thought I’d found him.’

Having been given the allotted car at Scotland Yard, Keedy asked the driver to take him to the address in the Hertfordshire countryside. The long journey gave him time to reflect on the abrasive meeting with Alice. Though he blamed himself for raising the subject of Odele Thompson, he was still shocked by the sudden jealousy he’d unwittingly provoked. She’d accused him of things he hadn’t done – or even thought of doing – and it was hurtful. As for the remark made by her brother, it made Keedy livid, all the more so because she had used it as a weapon to stab at him. He’d seen very little of Paul since the latter had come out of hospital but always asked Marmion about him. His only concern now was to meet him face to face and demand to know why he’d made such a comment to his sister.

Keedy was back in a situation he’d known before. Whenever he’d fallen out with one girlfriend, he’d immediately begun to search for a new one on the principle that that was the best possible way to get over his loss. He found himself doing that now, thinking about various attractive women who’d crossed his path recently and wondering what would have happened if he’d struck up a friendship with one of them. It was only a matter of time before Odele Thompson came to mind and he had to admit that she’d aroused flickers of temptation in him. If he was a free man, he decided, he wouldn’t have ignored her innuendoes and rejected her advances. Odele had the vitality of a professional dancer and a lack of inhibition that was exciting.

The car reached a junction and came to an abrupt halt as another vehicle shot across its path. Keedy was, literally, catapulted out of his reverie. He was shocked that he’d even thought about other women. Alice knew and accepted that he had had a past littered with romances. They’d agreed to put it behind them and made a series of promises to each other. Keedy began to feel remorse. At the same time, he couldn’t easily forgive the way that she’d attacked him. What had happened between them was more than a lovers’ tiff. It had shown that, for all her protestations, Alice still didn’t trust him. Since he was likely to meet a number of women in the course of his work, there would always be grounds for suspicion on her part. It made him feel shackled.

Meanwhile, he had a job to do so he began to chat to the driver.

‘How much longer will it take us?’

‘I don’t know, sir,’ said the man. ‘It’s the other side of St Albans.’

‘Can you go any faster?’

‘I’ll do my best.’

The car surged forward and Keedy settled into the back seat. In making the journey, he was relying on pure instinct. When he’d seen
Allan Redmond leaving the Wimbledon house in a rush, he knew that he’d frightened the man into precipitate action. That was often indicative of guilt. Yet there was no guarantee that he’d fled to his country cottage. The drive across Hertfordshire could turn out to be a waste of time. Redmond might equally well have gone to ground elsewhere or even, it now occurred to Keedy, have decided to leave the country altogether. In that event, the dancer would instantly become the prime suspect and an angry Claude Chatfield would demand to know why the sergeant hadn’t arrested the man when he had the opportunity. Keedy could already hear the superintendent’s rasping voice.

‘Come on, man,’ said Chatfield, rapping his desk with his knuckles, ‘you’ve been in this job long enough to develop your instincts. Is he or is he not our killer?’

‘No, sir,’ replied Marmion. ‘Mr Noonan is not.’

‘Are you certain of that?’

‘I’m certain that he didn’t
commit
the murder. You only have to look at him to see that. He’s too fat, slow and short of breath. Noonan is also too fond of quality tailoring to risk getting a spot of blood on his clothing. On the other hand,’ Marmion went on, ‘he might well have incited someone else to kill Wilder.’

‘So it
was
worth interviewing him?’

‘Yes, sir, and I’m grateful to you for bringing him to our notice.’

‘Mrs Wilder should have done that.’

‘I mean to ask her why she didn’t do so, Superintendent. When he told me that he hadn’t had anything to do with her for years, I didn’t believe Noonan for a second. I think he’d spoken to her earlier today.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Why else would he go to Chingford?’

‘One of his clients might live there.’

Marmion smiled. ‘Godfrey Noonan would be highly unlikely to drive ten miles to see clients, sir.
They
come to him. He’d save on expenses that way and he’d also maintain his image as their God. When they need his services, they have to worship
him
.’

‘Yet you say that he operates from some shoddy premises.’

‘Don’t be misled by that. He’s clearly a wealthy man.’

‘So he could afford to
hire
a killer.’

‘You could say the same of Mrs Wilder, sir.’

When he delivered his report to Chatfield, he omitted all mention of Gillian Hogg. Having caught her unawares at her flat, Marmion’s view of her had been adjusted. She was no longer the nice, quiet, altruistic woman he’d first thought and she hadn’t been entirely honest with him at their earlier meeting. His view of Godfrey Noonan, however, was unlikely to change. The agent could be added to the long list of likeable rogues Marmion had encountered. Noonan was an affable, venal, ruthless, exploitive, larger-than-life character of a kind that could only exist in a theatrical environment. He was the exact opposite of Claude Chatfield, a decent, hard-working, law-abiding, dedicated, sober, joyless man whose God existed in the Roman Catholic Church and not – as in Noonan’s case – in the shaving mirror.

‘I’m
certain
that he went to see Mrs Wilder,’ said Marmion. ‘That’s why he refused to say what had taken him there. Had it been a meeting with a client, he’d have had no reason to hide it from me.’

‘I take your point,’ conceded Chatfield. ‘And though it has its charms, I don’t think that Chingford would draw anyone out of an office in Soho unless he had a very specific reason to go there.’

‘You asked for a link between Noonan and Mrs Wilder, sir.’

‘That’s true, Inspector.’

‘Now you have it.’

‘What about Atterbury?’

‘He could be involved but … I’m not sure about that.’

‘You and the sergeant both found him shifty.’

‘We also caught him lying to us, sir, but dishonesty isn’t enough in itself for us to accuse him of murder. I’d like to have him followed. It’s the one way to find out if he’s involved in a conspiracy with Mrs Wilder and Noonan. Will you sanction that?’

Chatfield pursed his lips. ‘We have very limited resources.’

‘Surely we can spare one man to shadow him?’

‘Let me think about it.’

‘It’s what I’d advise, Superintendent.’

‘I’d advise it myself if I had enough detectives at my disposal. I’d have each and every one of our suspects followed. But we have to put our men where they can be of most use. I’ll mull it over.’

There was no point in arguing. The decision lay with Chatfield and all that the inspector could do was to hope that it was the right one. His main concern was to get back to Chingford so that he could question Catherine Wilder. He rose to his feet.

‘I’ll be off, sir.’

‘Keep in touch by telephone.’

‘You won’t forget my request regarding Atterbury, will you?’ Chatfield shot him a belligerent glance. ‘No, no, of course you won’t.’

Ellen Marmion kept reminding herself of her husband’s advice. She was wrong to feel afraid of Paul. While they had a duty of care towards their son – all the more so in view of his injuries – they also had parental rights. One of them was to insist on being told what was going on in his life. They couldn’t help him properly until they understood his real
needs. To that end, Ellen had been steeling herself for the next encounter with Paul. Since he’d been distant with her at breakfast, she decided to be more assertive. The problem was that she had no opportunity to try the new tactic. Her son had been gone for five or six hours.

When he finally returned, Ellen was ready to ambush him.

‘You’ve been gone a long time, Paul.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘Mrs Belton saw you getting on a bus. Where did you go?’

‘I just went for a ride.’

‘You didn’t stay on the bus all that time, surely?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ he admitted.

‘Why are you so afraid to say where you’ve been? You can’t just shut us out of your life like this.’

‘I went to see someone. Is that a crime?’

‘It was that friend of Colin’s again, wasn’t it? She lives in Gillingham. Mrs Belton told me that the bus was going to Kent.’

‘Well, you can tell that old busybody not to spy on me.’

‘She saw you quite by accident.’

‘Mrs Belton is always watching somebody,’ he said, angrily. ‘Look what happened to that son of hers, Patrick. She kept him under lock and key all day and never let the poor lad out of her sight.’

‘There was a reason for that,’ she argued. ‘She’d already lost two sons at the front. Lena Belton didn’t want Patrick to be killed as well. He was all she had. She thought that she was protecting him from being called up.’

‘Well, it didn’t work and it serves her bloody well right!’

‘Paul!’

‘No wonder he ran off to join the navy.’

‘You ought to feel sorry for Mrs Belton. She was only doing what she
thought was best. Since Patrick ran away, she’s been all alone.’

‘That’s what happens to mothers who try to control their children every minute of the day. They can’t live someone else’s life for them,’ he said with sudden passion. ‘You should remember that. I’m over twenty-one now. I’m old enough to vote and to fight for my country. Don’t you think that it entitles me to some freedom? Why must you keep asking what I’m doing and where I’m going? It’s maddening! For Christ’s sake – can’t you see that?’

Charging up the stairs, he ran to his room and slammed the door after him. Ellen, meanwhile, was quivering with pain. The new tactic had failed abysmally. Her son had comprehensively shut her out of his life.

They got there just in time. The cottage was in a small village that comprised a pub, a church, a pond, a green and a few clusters of dwellings. For someone who wished to get away from the maelstrom of London, it was an idyllic place, tranquil, unspoilt and surrounded by rolling countryside. They’d had difficulty finding it and Keedy’s driver had taken a couple of wrong turns along the way but they had at last got there. Redmond’s car was standing outside the cottage. They drew up beside it. Redmond himself soon appeared with a suitcase. Keedy climbed quickly out of the police car to confront him.

‘Are you going somewhere, sir?’ he asked.

Redmond’s jaw dropped. ‘What the devil are
you
doing here?’

‘I just dropped in for a chat – the way that you did at Miss Thompson’s flat.’

‘Ah, I see. That bitch, Odele, gave you my address, didn’t she?’

‘Unlike you, she was ready to assist the police, sir.’

‘That’s exactly what I did, Sergeant.’

‘No,’ said Keedy, ‘it’s what you very cleverly gave the impression of doing. After I left the house, I waited around the corner. I had a feeling that you might do a flit and – lo and behold – here you are!’

‘This is my cottage. There’s no law to stop me coming here, is there?’

‘None at all, Mr Redmond, but you might have done us the courtesy of telling us where you were going.’

‘The decision was made on the spur of the moment.’

‘It was made the second you realised that we’d rumbled you. I could read your mind, sir. That’s why I lurked around the corner. I knew that you’d bolt.’