She Died Young (11 page)

chapter
13

I
T WAS NOT UNTIL
the next day that Jarrell was free to visit Dr Swann. He waited by the basement door, but there was no answer to the bell. He waited, rang again, waited. The door, tucked under the steps leading to the front door above, was protected from view and he had no hesitation in picking the lock.

Letters and a newspaper lay fanned out on the mat. He stood still and tense, then stooped to pick them up. He stopped to listen in the dark passageway; sniffed an odd smell he couldn’t identify.

‘Anyone at home?’

But he knew that only the silence would answer him. He advanced and opened the door on the left.

An old man lay back in a leather chair set at an angle to its twin. The room itself was pleasantly warm after the icy street and smelled of something medical.

For a second Jarrell thought the man was sleeping, but almost at once he knew he was staring at a corpse. Whatever had been the cause of his death, his distorted expression did not suggest a peaceful end. Jarrell noted that the dead man’s spruce style of clothing – the bow tie in particular – could not hide the shabbiness of the clothes themselves: frayed cuffs, trousers almost threadbare in places. The left shirt cuff was undone. Jarrell pushed up the sleeve and saw needle marks. As he moved around the body he trod on something and, bending down, retrieved the syringe. He looked at it and then replaced it where it had fallen.

It might not be murder. In fact, an overdose seemed the more likely cause of death. Yet it seemed strange that no sooner had the dead man’s name cropped up in the investigation of a death that was now regarded as suspicious, than the man himself had died an unexpected – an unnatural – death.

He looked round the room. It would require fingerprinting, but he should at least investigate the desk and the papers lying around on it. It looked as though someone had disturbed them, had been searching for something. He put on his leather gloves. They made his fingers clumsy, but would have to do.

Among the papers on the desk Jarrell found a couple of letters from charities that the doctor had evidently contacted for help and as Jarrell looked through the papers, both on top and in the desk drawers, it became clear that the dead man was in serious financial trouble. There were letters relating to the doctor’s tenancy; he was in arrears with the rent. But it was fanciful to think of his landlord murdering him for that. Perhaps a deliberate overdose had been the way out.

Jarrell made a superficial first search of the front room. He returned to the corridor and the back of the house, where he found a single bedroom and behind that a kitchen and scullery. There was no bathroom. The lavatory was outside the back door.

The bedroom contained nothing personal apart from a framed photograph of a woman in old-fashioned dress, possibly the dead man’s mother. In the chest of drawers, there were handkerchiefs and underwear, neatly folded, woollen cardigans and socks. The kitchen was equally neat and spare, just a wooden draining board and butler sink, a gas stove, a small, scrubbed wooden table and a cupboard containing a few tins, a packet of sugar, a jar of marmalade and a pat of butter, or probably marge, on a plate.

He returned to the front room and took from a saucer on the mantelpiece the set of keys he had noticed earlier. There were five keys, a yale and mortice lock, presumably for the front door, and three smaller ones. One was of a type to open the filing cabinet in the corner.

This contained a few more letters and bills. There was also a sheaf of publicity photographs of some of the boxers Swann had, presumably, tended at one time or another. There were also before and after photographs of the men whose faces Swann must have altered. It surprised Jarrell that the photographs had even been taken, let alone kept, but they didn’t seem relevant now – unless, it occurred to him, a visitor had filched the one that could lead to his recognition. A crook of that type, however, Jarrell thought, would probably have used a rougher method than lethal injection to kill the doctor.

A second, rather battered key with a round shank and a circular head with a hole in the middle looked as though it might fit the old mahogany medicine cupboard that stood against the wall. It did. The twin doors creaked open to reveal rows of drugs in carefully labelled compartments: morphine, digitalis, phenobarbitone. Several were empty. Had there been a theft? That would point to murder. Or had the old man simply run out of supplies?

The fifth key fitted the back-door lock. Jarrell opened it, but did not step out into the cramped concrete yard.

He let himself out of the flat and locked the door. He ran up the steps and looked up and down the empty street. He didn’t think anyone had seen him, but you could never be sure. Not that it mattered.

The sky hung in a heavy sulphur-coloured mass just above the rooftops. It would soon snow.

chapter
14

T
HE WEDDING-CAKE HOTEL WHERE
Blackstone was lodging in Eastbourne stared out to sea with majestic complacency. Its guests, some of whom were permanent residents, included several wealthy widows lucky enough to have so far escaped the ministrations of Dr John Bodkin Adams.

It hadn’t snowed here, but when Blackstone ventured outside, the bleak vista of the windswept front was deserted. No question of a stroll. You were bowled along by the wind in one direction or struggled against it in the other. Waves crashed up against the shore and spat foam up onto the pavement. The seaside in winter was altogether too elemental. Blackstone retreated speedily indoors.

He had done his duty. He’d interviewed the doctor. He’d scooped his rivals. Bodkin Adams was almost certainly about to be arrested, but Blackstone had found him astonishingly calm. He had, for example, said carelessly of one of the elderly ladies who had died under his care and left him a substantial legacy, that he was only surprised she hadn’t left him more.

The man’s bland effrontery had astonished even the cynical Blackstone, although the journalist knew he should not have been surprised. It was extraordinary how many individuals believed they’d get away with breaking the law. Grotesque and awful crimes were passed off with lame excuses, violence was justified with self-righteous indignation. In a way the eternal optimism of the criminal was endearing. He – and sometimes it was a she – looked on the bright side, expected something to turn up, hoped for the best, met the starkest of evidence with determined denial; or, in the case of John Christie, the mass murderer, seemed gratified by the attendant notoriety. Certainly, Bodkin Adams was serenely insistent he’d done nothing wrong – and perhaps he was as blameless as he claimed to be. Sometimes, Blackstone thought, it was too easy to take the cynical view, to assume the worst of human beings. Yet he hadn’t liked the man. He’d recoiled from the doctor’s oily air of righteousness and found his quiet voice chilling.

Even more sinister to Blackstone was the loyalty of Bodkin Adams’ patients. The few, at least, that he’d managed to talk to wouldn’t hear a bad word about their physician. The manner in which the police had victimised him was disgraceful, they said.

Blackstone had woven their support and the support the doctor clearly had from local dignitaries and high-ups into a piece he felt would delight the Little Man. It had all the ingredients, in particular the agreeable horror of its central character: the doctor, the man you could trust, turning his expertise into the art of killing rather than curing. Blackstone, needless to say, made no direct accusation. It was all done with the subtlest of suggestion. He’d done his job, but the case and its quiet horror still didn’t engage him. It might end up being the scandal of the decade, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t wait to get away and to continue instead his quest for the reason for Valerie’s death.

Bodkin Adams was arrested. Then he was released on bail. There was a lull in the proceedings and Blackstone was free to take a taxi all the way along the coast.

By the time he arrived in Portsmouth Blackstone had prepared himself for what might be a difficult encounter – if it took place at all. You always had to be prepared to draw a blank. He registered at the station hotel for the night. It was nothing like as grand as the one on Eastbourne esplanade. Next he visited the local library. There he trawled through the electoral register, beginning with a poorer part of town.

He consulted the phone book, then returned to the register and made a list of three Jarvises who didn’t appear in the phone book. Valerie’s parents were poor; they most likely didn’t have a telephone. There were not too many Jarvises and he had to start somewhere. He chose one. It was a semi-detached house in a run-down suburb. He drew a blank. No-one was at home. Wearily, he found a bus that returned him to the centre and set off again, this time for an even shabbier part of Portsmouth, near the docks.

The district had been badly bombed. In fact, the whole of Portsmouth had been pummelled by the Germans. He saw some signs of rebuilding – a new town centre, new housing, new shops – but as he approached the district of pygmy terraces, pinched dwellings with front doors directly on the street, he saw acres of rubble and damaged houses still boarded up.

Number 15 had escaped the bombs. He banged on the door. As he waited, he rehearsed what he should say, the questions he should ask, but foremost in his mind was the need to break the news of Valerie’s death.

The woman who answered the door looked nothing like Valerie. Perhaps she was anaemic, for she was pale and looked tired. She was neatly dressed with wispy hair in a roll and wore National Health glasses. She gazed at him palely, sad already, as if fearful that an unexpected visitor could only mean bad news.

Blackstone presented his card and stood there humbly, unthreatening, hesitant. ‘I’m sorry to bother you, but I wondered … I’d very much like to talk to you …’

‘You’re from the papers …?’ She looked at him doubtfully.

‘It’s about your daughter, Mrs Jarvis.’

‘Val …?’ It was a shock, he could see that, because now she had the frozen look of someone assimilating unexpected news. ‘Oh … I …’ She looked at him blankly.

‘I’d like to talk to you about Valerie. I won’t take up much of your time. I have some news of her, you see.’

She still stared and then mechanically moved aside and he stepped into the parlour that opened directly from the street.

‘It’s not good news, Mrs Jarvis, but it might in some sense be a relief to know …’

She sat very still with her hands clasped together over her apron as Blackstone broke the news. She stared at him with her pale eyes, enlarged by her lenses, and didn’t react at all.

‘I’m very sorry to have to tell you this,’ he said; and in truth, he was. No longer distracted by the scandal and rumour surrounding Bodkin Adams, he had felt depressed all day. Now this dull parlour with its heavy three-piece suite and the central table – all the furniture crowded together – made him feel worse. The only decoration was a framed collage of a pierrot made out of what looked like sweet papers in blue, silver and red against a black background. He stared at it fixedly, willing the woman to talk.

Eventually she did. ‘I hadn’t seen Val in a long time. She never paid us a visit and she wasn’t much of a hand at writing. I don’t know …’ She lapsed into a dispirited silence. Gradually Blackstone coaxed the story out of her.

A girl who left home at sixteen, who ran off with a foreign sailor from the docks. Thought she’d fallen in love and was going to get married.

‘She was full of dreams, was Valerie, thought Prince Charming was coming round the corner of this street any moment.’

‘She was the romantic type, was she?’

Mrs Jarvis talked on in her flat, dismal voice as she told the familiar story. ‘She’d believe anything. He spun her a yarn. Her father tracked her down in London and threatened the man with the police. He tried to bring her back, but she wasn’t having it. But then the seaman went off back to where he come from, on his ship, I suppose, and that was when she wrote the letter, asking for money. My husband went back up there, but she wasn’t where she’d been before, he asked other people in the house, it was all flats and bedsits, but nobody knew – or else they wouldn’t say. And that’s the last we heard of her. It killed my husband.’ Her pale voice drained the events of emotion. She sat expressionless, her hands still folded in her lap.

No-one seemed to care that Valerie was dead, not even her mother. He didn’t know what else to say. There was nothing further to ask. He didn’t know what he was doing in this dismal room; didn’t know why he’d come.

Well – he’d felt her family should know and even that he could share his sadness with them. Now her mother’s flat indifference made the journey seem pointless. Then Mrs Jarvis spoke again.

‘I tell a lie – she did get in touch – once. It was after Arthur passed away, though. Sent a postcard saying she was going to get married, said she was well and happy and we shouldn’t worry about her no more.’

‘Was there an address?’

Mrs Jarvis shook her head.

Well and happy – married. Blackstone’s mouth was dry. He swallowed. ‘Do you still have it – the postcard?’

She looked at him dully. ‘Oh … I’m not sure …’ She showed no sign of moving.

‘D’you think you possibly might have it somewhere?’

‘You want me to look?’ The request seemed to surprise her.

‘That would be very helpful. If you don’t mind.’

‘Well … I don’t know …’ But she rose and looked vaguely around. ‘I suppose …’ She opened each drawer of the sideboard in turn and after a few moments, retrieved it. ‘Here you are.’

The words, written in round, careful writing, were more or less as Mrs Jarvis had remembered them. What interested Blackstone was the card itself. It was a publicity card for the California Club. A palm tree, a beach and some swimmers advertised the place, with an address near Leicester Square.

‘I expect you were pleased,’ he said. ‘Must have set your mind at rest.’

She shrugged and gazed at him with her pale, enlarged eyes. ‘She didn’t think about us. Just another fairy story like as not.’

Her words upset and angered Blackstone. No-one had cared for Valerie, not even her mother. It didn’t even seem to matter that the girl was dead.

‘What am I supposed to do now, then?’ Blackstone hated her flat, anaemic voice. ‘I got no money to bury her.’

‘I suppose that’s up to you, Mrs Jarvis. You could get a death grant, you know,’ he said. ‘You’ll surely want to see her buried properly.’

He was in a sour mood all the way back in the train to London, took a taxi back to his flat from the station and had a final look at the Bodkin Adams interview. Then he had a kip and after that he decided to eat at the nearby Cumberland Hotel.

He looked round the bar with its dark wood panelling, pink mirrors and square-cut 1930s sofas and chairs, all orange and brown and beige. He ordered a whisky, but this evening the alcohol merely deepened his melancholy. Perhaps it was a mistake to have come here. This was where he’d met her that time. Sonia had arranged the rendezvous, but the location had been his choice.

She’d worn a blue dress and a much shorter and less fashionable coat. With this combination and those clunky high-heeled shoes she looked like a little girl dressed up in her mother’s clothes. But when she shrugged off her coat that décolletage was something else. And that smile.

Yes, she really did look like Marilyn Monroe. The voice spoilt the illusion a bit. Monroe’s soft breathy vowels caressed you as she spoke, but Valerie’s was a flat, rather common south coast twang. Yet the way she talked drew him to her. A girl like her must – surely – know her way about, but she seemed naive, even innocent. She didn’t touch alcohol, she said, but he drank almost a whole bottle of wine, followed up by a couple of brandies. When he invited her back to his flat for a coffee she seemed pleased and surprised – as if the outcome of this meeting hadn’t been known from the beginning, as if this was just a first date that had gone unexpectedly well, as if she was thrilled to have met such a sympathetic beau.