Murder Being Once Done (16 page)

‘Where did you meet her?’ he asked.

‘She came into the restaurant where I was a waiter.’ Adams didn’t give a deprecating smile or apologize for his past (perhaps present) humble calling. He finished his beansprouts and set the plate to one side. ‘We talked. She said she was sharing with a girl in Battersea, but she wasn’t comfortable because they only had one room and the girl had her boy friend there at nights. I asked if she’d like to share with me.’ Still without smiling, he added, ‘I was finding the rent a bit much.’

‘She agreed?’

‘The same day. She collected her stuff and moved in that night.’

Wexford was rather shocked. Did they really goon like that these days? ‘A bit cold-blooded, wasn’t it?’

‘Cold-blooded?’ Adams hadn’t understood and when he did he was more shocked than Wexford had been. His face went cold with disgust. ‘You’re not suggesting she slept with me, are you?
Are you?
’ He shook his head, tapping one finger against his brow. ‘I don’t understand your generation. You accuseus of being promiscuous and casual and so on, but you’re the ones with the unclean minds. I honestly don’t care if you believe this or not, but Lulu lived here with me for four months and we were never lovers. Never. I suppose you’re going to ask why not. The answer is that these days, whatever happened in your time, you can sleep in the same room as a girl and not want to make love to her because you’re not frustrated. No one any longer has the power to force you into an unnatural celibacy, you’re free to have the girls you do want. We didn’t attract each other, that’s all, and we weren’t in the position of having to make do with any port in a storm.’ He held up one hand. ‘I’m not queer. I had girl friends, I went to their places. No doubt Lulu saw her boy friends at theirs.’

‘I believe you, Mr Adams.’

At last he smiled. Wexford saw that delivering his little lecture had relaxed him and he wasn’t surprised when he said, ‘Don’t call me that. My name’s Lewis. People used to call us Lew and Lulu.’

‘Did Lulu work?’

‘She had some money of her own, but she worked sometimes. She used to go out cleaning. Why not? You
are
conventional. It’s well paid around here and what you get you keep. No cards, no stamps, no tax.’

‘What was she like, what sort of a girl?’

‘I was fond of her,’ said Adams. ‘She was quietand sensible and reserved. I like that. You get sick of the sound and the fury, you know. Her stepfather,’ he added, ‘was a great guy for sound and fury.’

‘He came here?’

‘She’d been here four months.’ Adams took a drink from the glass of water on his dinner tray. ‘She opened the door and when she let him in I heard her give a sort of cry – I was out in the kitchen through there – and say, “Stephen, darling Stephen, I knew you’d come for me one day”.’ He shook his head disapprovingly both, Wexford thought, at the hysterical utterance itself and at hearing it on his own lips. ‘It wasn’t like her, losing control. I was shattered.’

‘But he’d only come to find out where she was?’

‘He explained that. You know all those endless explanations people go in for. I didn’t care for him, a big showy man, an extrovert. Lulu didn’t say much. She told me afterwards that when she saw him she really believed he wanted her at last and the shock of knowing he didn’t for the second time was too much for her. He thought what you thought, that I was her lover. He made a fuss about that. I didn’t deny anything or defend myself. Why should I? Then there was a very nasty scene which is best forgotten and he went.’

‘What was the scene about?’

Adams had now adopted a manner rather at odds with his youthful appearance. It was as if the young barrister had become an elderly and successful counsel who, conducting an unsavoury case, reveals because he must for his client’s sake the bare facts, while taking pains to omit and make it clear that he is omitting all the nauseating details.

‘How can knowing that possibly help you?’

‘Anything about Louise might help. I can’t make you tell me, but I think you should.’

Adams shrugged. ‘I suppose you know your own business best. This stepfather – I don’t know his name, I’m afraid, Srephen Something – was telling Lulu in a very tactless way how happy he and her mother were when Lulu said, “You’re very fond of children, aren’t you, Stephen?” And he said he was and he hoped to have some of his own. Lulu suddenly became rather like a powerhouse. I don’t want to dramatize things. But she gave the impression of very strong pressure holding down an irrepressible force.’

Powerhouses, Wexford thought, cauldrons . . . Afrightening sort of girl, intimidating as are all those passionate and turbulent creatures with no outlet for their fevers. ‘She said something to him?’

‘Oh, yes. I said it was nasty. She said, “Not with my mother you won’t, Stephen. Surely she didn’t forget to tell you she had a hysterectomy when I was fifteen?” ’ Adams’ face creased with distaste. ‘I left them then and went out into the kitchen. The stepfather screamed and shouted at her and Lulu did some screaming too. She didn’t tell me what they said and a week later she left.’

‘Where did she go?’

‘She wouldn’t tell me. We weren’t on very good terms when we parted. Pity, because we’d always trusted each other. Lulu didn’t trust me any more. I’d told her off for shouting at this Stephen. She thought I was sympathizing with her parents and that I’d tell them where she was if she told me.’

‘You must have some idea,’ Wexford protested.

‘From various things she said, I think she went to Notting Hill. Possibly to a boy friend.’

‘His name?’

‘There was someone who used to phone her. Somebody called John. He used to ask for her and say, This is John.’

In the morning he asked to see everything Loveday Morgan had worn on the day of her death, and they showed him bra and tights from a chain store, black shoes, black plastic handbag, lemon acrilan sweater and sage green trouser suit. He saw too the contents of that handbag and every personal article found in her room.

‘No cheque book?’

‘She wouldn’t have had one, sir,’ said Sergeant Clements, putting on the indulgent look he kept for this naive old copper who thought every female corpse had been of the landed gentry. ‘She hadn’t any money, bar her wages.’

‘I wonder what’s become of the child’s birth certificate?’

‘With Grandma,’ said Clements firmly. ‘Grandma’s blind or in the laughing house or she’d have come forward by now. Any thing else you want to see, sir?’

‘The scarf she was killed with.’

Clements brought it in on a kind of tray.

‘She’s supposed to have been wearing this?’ Wexford queried. ‘It’s a very expensive scarf. Not for a girl earning twelve pounds a week.’

‘They have their funny extravagances, sir. She’d go without her dinners three or four days and then blue a pound on a scarf.’

Slowly Wexford handled the square of silk, exposing the label. ‘This is a Gucci scarf, Sergeant. It didn’t cost a pound. It cost eight or nine times that.’

Clements’ mouth fell open. Who connected with this case, Wexford thought, but Mrs Dearborn would have an expensive silk scarf? Hadn’t she been hunting for this very scarf before she went out on Monday afternoon? She hand’t been able to find it because her daughter had borrowed it, without saying anything in the way daughters do, on her last visit to Laysbrook House.

The sage gravity and reverence of the elders should keep the youngers from wanton licence of words and behaviour.

Howard was taking part in a top-level conference at Scotland Yard, discussing no doubt what the next move should be now that Gregson had made his escape under the protection of the ingenious Mrde Traynor. No matter how omnipotent Howard might appear to be, Wexford knew he was in fact answerable always to the head of his Divisional Crime Squad, a commander who very likely knew nothing of a country chief inspector’s arrival on the scene.

The gasworks loured at him through a veil of drizzle. He paced up and down, fretting, waiting for Pamela to phone through and say when Howard would be back. He had to talk to Howard before going to Laysbrook House, and he half hoped he wouldn’t have to go at all. His wishes in the matter of Louise Sampson were curiously divided. He liked Mrs Dearborn and the humane man in him wanted to see her come out of the mortuary weeping with relief instead of white with shock. But he was a policeman too, whose pride in his abilities had recently suffered blows. Considerable experience and hard work had gone into matching the missing girl with the dead. He knew his desire was base, but he admitted to himself that he would feel a thrill of pride if he vindicated himself in Baker’s view and saw Howard’s eyes narrow with admiration. And she had, after all, to be someone’s daughter . . .

He jumped the way Melanie Dearborn jumped when the phone rang, but instead of Pamela’s, the voice was a man’s and one he couldn’t remember having heard before.

‘It’s Philip Chell.’

Wexford took a few seconds to remember who this was. ‘Oh, yes, Mr Chell?’

‘Ivan said to tell you he’s got something for you.’

That bloody
Utopia
, Wexford thought. But it wasn’t.

‘It’s something he’s found out. He says, d’you want him to come to you or will you come here?’

‘What’s it about?’ Wexford asked impatiently.

‘Don’t know. He wouldn’t say.’ The voice became aggrieved. ‘He never tells me anything.’

‘Will tomorrow morning do? About ten at your place?’

‘Make it eleven,’ said Chell. ‘If he knows we’ve got a visitor he’ll have me up at the crack of dawn.’

Pamela put her head round the door. ‘Mr Fortune will be free at twelve, sir.’

An hour to wait. Why shouldn’t he go to Garmisch Terrace during that hour instead of waiting until tomorrow? Whatever Teal had to tell him might provide another link between Loveday and Louise. He took his hand from the mouthpiece and said, ‘How about if I were to . . . ?’ but Chell had rung off.

The front door was open and he walked straight in. For once the hall was crowded. Chell, in fetching denim and knee-boots, was leaning against the banisters reading a picture postcard and giggling with pleasure. Peggy sat on one corner of the large hall table among newspapers and milk bottles, holding forth shrilly to the Indian and the party-giving girl, while Lamont, the baby in his arms, stood disconsolately by.

Wexford gave them a general good morning and went up to Chell, who, when he saw who it was, switched off his preoccupied smile like someone snapping off a light.

‘Ivan’s gone out for the day,’ he said. He gave the postcard a last fond look and slipped it into his pocket. ‘I can’t tell you anything. All I know is Ivan was going through his cuttings when he suddenly said, “My God,” and he must get hold of you.”

‘What cuttings?’

‘He’s a designer, isn’t he? I thought you knew. Well, people write about him in the papers and when they do he cuts the bit out and pastes it in his book.’

Aware that Peggy had fallen silent and that by now everyone was listening avidly, Wexford said in a lower tone, ‘Could we go up and have a look at this book?’

‘No, we could
not
. Really, whatever next? Ivan would
kill
me. He was perfectly horrid to me before he went out just because I’d left last night’s washing up. I can’t help it if I have these frightful migraines, can I?’

The party girl giggled.

‘I feel very depressed,’ said Chell. ‘I’m going to draw out my whole month’s allowance and buy some clothes to cheer myself up.’ He stuck up his chin and marched out, banging the front door resoundingly behind him.

‘All right for some,’ said Peggy, passing a dirty hand across her face and leaving black streaks on her beautiful brow. ‘Nice to be a kept man, isn’t it, Johnny?’

‘I look after her, don’t I?’ Lamont muttered, giving the baby a squeeze to indicate to whom he was referring. ‘I’ve done everything for her practically since she was born.’

‘Except when you’re down the pub.’

‘Three bloody hours at lunchtime! And you go out leaving me stuck with her every evening. I’m going back to bed.’ He hoisted the baby on to his shoulder and made for the basement stairs, giving Peggya backward glance which, it seemed to Wexford, contained more of hurt love them resentment.

‘Look, Mr What’s-your-name,’ said Peggy, ‘when are you lot going to open up Loveday’s room so as we can re-let it? The landlords have lost fourteen quid already and it’s keeping them awake at nights.’

‘Is there someone wanting to rent it?’

‘Yeah, her.’ Peggy pointed to the party girl who nodded. ‘Funny, isn’t it? Big laugh. A guy like you would pay seven quid a week
not
to live in it.’

‘It’s two pounds a week less than what I’m paying,’ said the other girl.

‘Well, I’m not discussing the landlords’ business in public,’ said Peggy huffily. She jumped down from the table and tucked a milk bottle under each arm. ‘You’d better come with me down to the hole in the ground.’

Wexford followed her, murmuring vainly that the matter wasn’t in his hands. In the basement room Lamont was lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Peggy took no notice of him. She began to rummage among letters on the mantelpiece.

‘I’m looking for a bit of paper,’ she said, ‘so you can write down who they have to contact about getting the room back.’

‘Will this do?’ ‘This’ was a sheet of paper he had picked up from the top of an untidy pile on the foot of the bed. As he held it out to her he saw that it was an estate agent’s specification of a house in Brixton, offered for sale at four thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine pounds.

‘No, it won’t do!’ said Lamont, rousing himself and seizing the paper which he screwed up and hurled into a sooty cavern behind the electric fire.

Peggy laughed unpleasantly at him. ‘You said you were going to chuck that out – God, it must be the weekend before last. Why don’t you clear up the place instead of slopping about on the bed all day? It’s time you got up, anyway, if that guy’s going to phone you about that TV work. Did you give him the number of the Grand Duke?’