The Chelsea Murders (22 page)

T
HE
plain car took Summers rapidly to Putney.

He didn’t spend long there. The house was one of a terrace, windows boarded up, elderly privet hedge overgrown. It totally masked the tiny front garden. A good deal of rubbish had been tipped over the hedge. A scattering of it had been disturbed to cover the deposit now disclosed.

Summers satisfied himself and left it guarded, and got through directly to Warton, who gave him fresh instructions.

At his end, Warton had the light-headed feeling of a
tightrope
walker, swaying with his pole, the end clearly in sight. Only a step or two to be taken now.

Mrs Bulstrode always felt a bit light-headed when she got up. The earlier rising had done nothing to mitigate this. She had felt dizzy as she’d dozed off again, and now, brushing her teeth in her little bathroom, she had to hang on to the towel rail. She put her teeth back in the glass and closed her eyes.

Oh God, it was no fun being old.

Some of the young kids on the wireless had sung a song about it, in the cynical way they had. They called themselves – what was it, The Rolling Stones yes – and although she’d felt awful at the time, she’d had to laugh. ‘What a
dra-ag
it is getting
o-old
,’ they’d sang. She’d actually just been sick when she’d heard it. She had been so faint she’d plonked herself down on the bed, and the little transistor had brayed from practically underneath her like a long and melodious breaking of wind.

‘What a
dra-ag
it is getting
o-old
!’

But she’d had to laugh.

They did make you laugh, young people.

Some just made you sick, of course.

The dizziness was easing, and she cautiously opened her eyes.

She ought to eat something. She never felt like much, these days: tea and bread and butter. The thought of doughy bread and butter made her queasy again, so she stopped thinking of it.

Then she remembered about the grill, and a tiny miracle of appetite flared.

Well, now.

She got her teeth out of the glass and prepared to get some use out of them.

There were no spaces in the narrow street, but Summers had had a word with the little busybody who was writing out
parking
tickets. He waited double-parked till Artie came briskly out of the Soho costumiers, and then arrested him.

His orders were to arrest him only if he resisted, and he did
resist. Artie was like a wildcat in the police car. Summers told him he would handcuff him if he didn’t pack it in, and he was in a state of sullen silence as they turned into Colston Street.

They got him out of the car and went behind the overgrown hedge. Summers asked if he could identify anything there.

Artie said he couldn’t.

‘Now, then,’ Summers said, ‘you’ve already described that mask, you know you have. That’s the missing one, isn’t it?’

Artie said he didn’t know.

He didn’t know about the cape, either, or the rubber boots, or the bottle of chloroform or the cleaver.

Still on instructions, Summers took him in.

He took him directly to Warton.

Artie’s face had a bluish tinge, and Warton’s a yellowish one. He sat hunched in his chair and regarded Artie for a long time.

‘All right, sit down,’ he said.

‘I’ll stand.’

‘Suit yourself. Cigarette?’

‘Up your pipe,’ Artie said.

Warton lit one himself. ‘You’ve been had, cocker,’ he said, through the smoke. ‘You’ve been done.’ He fumbled on his desk and produced the letter for Artie, and the envelope:
Rubbish Dept., Police Force
…

He watched Artie read it.

‘Any thoughts?’ Warton said.

‘No.’

‘Artie,’ Warton said, quite mildly, ‘I’m not leaning on you. You’ve been had, son. I know it. That cleaver, apart from
anything
else, was supposed to finger you. See that?’

‘I don’t see anything,’ Artie said.

‘How long do you think it would take me to find out if a cleaver was missing from anywhere special?’

‘Go and find out,’ Artie said.

Warton watched him for a while.

‘Oh, sit down, for Christ’s sake,’ he said. ‘You’re making me nervous … Listen, I’m not asking you to shop him. I just want you to answer a few simple questions. Smoke if you want, you bloody fool!’

Artie accepted a cigarette and smoked it, which Warton took to be a good sign; but when he asked Artie the simple questions and Artie told him to go and fug himself, he realized it was going to take a little longer.

He said, ‘Look, I’ll speak plainly. I’ve not talked to him today, and I won’t, until I’ve had it out with you. Try and understand what I’m saying.
You have been under constant surveillance
. Your phone has been tapped. Probably you know this.
We
know you couldn’t have dumped that stuff. I am not sure that he knows it. Are you following me, Artie?’

Artie didn’t bother answering.

Warton lit another cigarette.

‘I’ll put it another way,’ he said. ‘Just so you will know I am putting nothing over on you. There is an offence which you know I can get you for. I am not doing any deals with you. Probably I will get you for it. But this one is a lot more serious. Murder, Artie. In view of this letter, and. what’s been found, I am bound to hang on to you, unless you satisfactorily answer my questions. Answer them – a perfectly understandable thing to do for a man charged – and I could even let you go about your business. I know you’ve got plenty of business to attend to, Artie.’

Artie thought about it.

‘
Are
you charging me?’ he said.

‘Not at the moment.’

‘Then get fugged,’ Artie said.

‘Okay. We’ll do it the long way,’ Warton said.

By twelve-forty-five they were still doing it the long way.

Artie couldn’t identify the costume or say if it had been altered. He couldn’t say if he’d ever seen the cleaver. He had no knowledge of Colbert-Greer’s sexual proclivities. He had never heard that the police had the numbers of Wu’s dollars.

‘Okay,’ Warton said. ‘And you won’t have read anywhere that we’ve had messages about these murders, then.’

‘That’s right,’ Artie said.

‘So his sense of humour will surprise you.’ He rummaged on his desk and produced a photo-copied example of it.

He watched Artie read it. Artie was smoking a fresh cigarette, and his face didn’t alter, but smoke came suddenly from his nostrils.

‘Ring any bells?’ Warton said.

Artie just shook his head.

‘Try these,’ Warton said.

He watched Artie’s face.

‘Nothing?’ Warton asked.

‘No.’

Warton watched him for some time longer. ‘I don’t know what to do about you,’ he said. ‘What would you do in my position?’

Artie gave him his familiar piece of advice.

‘Oh, bugger off,’ Warton said wearily. ‘Go on, get out.’

Artie blinked at him.

‘I can leave?’ he said.

‘Fast. Before I change my mind. I’ll get you, cocker,’ Warton said, ‘and you know what for. But this one isn’t yours. Watch your step.’

Summers’s face was a study in consternation when he
returned
after detailing a man to see Artie off the premises. He had his mouth half open, but closed it again on seeing the expression on Warton’s face. He couldn’t recall ever seeing a more unpleasant one there. Warton was nodding at a sheet of paper in his hand.

‘This here, Summers,’ he said, ‘is the last thing that poor girl wrote. She posted it less than an hour before she died. Sunday. It was sitting in the box till Monday morning. Ticking away like a time bomb, and he never knew it. He
doesn’t
know it.’

Summers slowly read the sheet handed to him.

‘He lives on the ground floor of that hostel?’ Summers said. ‘Who does?’

‘Three guesses,’ Warton said.

In the three-card trick if you backed three, you got three.

Artie emerged into Lucan Place and saw a cruising taxi and flagged it. ‘King’s Road,’ he said. ‘Opposite the post office.’

He couldn’t control his hands. On his shaking left wrist he saw it was a quarter-past one. Oh Jesus, he thought, don’t let it be too late. The Letraset messages that he had just seen flickered in his mind, and he remembered the other one, just as neatly done,
God Bless This Crapper,
now in Liverpool, and done by the same hand. In the one blinding flash just now, he had seen the whole lot, every fugging step of the betrayal. And the cleaver. Oh, the cleaver. Oh, the cunning bastard, to do this to him.
Like children they are, and this one is a Big Head
. Oh Jesus, let it not be too late.

Artie clutched his hands together to stop them shaking, but they shook, and his whole body did. Not be too late, he prayed.

Steve had arrived quite early, in fact at a quarter to one, and he pressed the button marked top and said, ‘It’s Steve,’ as Mooney’s voice crackled through the grill.

‘Oh. Early,’ Mooney said, surprised. ‘Okay, push.’

Steve pushed. He tramped up the stairs, passed Tizack’s
landing
, and went up one more.

‘Well, now,’ he said.

‘You can say that again!’ Mooney said. She’d been in for half an hour, solidly typing. She had taken a few files from the office and had them scattered on the table in the general mess of papers. The phone rang at that moment and she answered it.

‘Chris! Not yet, for goodness’ sake,’ Mooney said. ‘I said I’ll call
you
… Sure. You’ll get it. Maybe in half an hour … Wow!’ she said, hanging up, ‘I tell you! Stand by for revelations, Steve. Do you want a drink?’

‘Well, not unless –‘

‘I do,’ Mooney said. She made two.

‘Has a revolution broken out somewhere?’ Steve said.

‘It will,’ Mooney said. ‘Cheers.’

‘Cheers. Where?’ Steve said.’

Mooney spreadeagled herself down, jeans-clad limbs
straggling
. ‘I don’t know where to start,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t till Artie gets here, anyway. Where is he?’

‘He’s in a lot of places,’ Steve said. ‘In a modest way we’ve got a news item of our own.’

‘So he said. Where’s Frank?’

‘Is Frank coming?’

‘I hope not. I mean – where is he?’

‘I don’t know. Isn’t it his library day? What
is
it, Mary?’

‘What it is,’ Mooney said, taking a glug, ‘is something you had better fasten seat-belts about … I really need Artie’s
reaction
. Still, no harm in telling you, I suppose. Do you want a refill?’

‘Okay,’ Steve said.

Mooney got two refills.

‘What I’m talking about,’ she said, ‘is a little house in a place called Sevastopol Street, which you won’t have heard of, but
which, by Christ, and by virtue of my office, you will, and so will everybody else. Are you sitting comfortably, Steve?’

‘So far,’ Steve said.

‘Well, this same little house, in Sevastopol Street, is the
headquarters
,’ Mooney said, making three pronouncements of the phrase – she had got a bit light-headed suddenly with her second drink – ‘of Murder Inc., British style. It sounds right, doesn’t it –
Sevastopol
Street?’

‘It does. What kind of murders?’ Steve said.

‘The Chelsea Murders. They were planned there,’ Mooney said. ‘I found it. I did. Together with the evidence. I mean, damn it, it’s just a little house, and he had a room in it – and you could look for a year and never find it. Needle in a haystack. And I found it.’

‘Well, wonderful,’ Steve said. ‘Why don’t you get yourself another drink, and tell me about it. What evidence?’

‘Well,’ Mooney said, pouring her third, ‘it’s long and
labyrinthine
, and rather wonderful.’

‘Not too long?’ Steve said, as he looked at his watch. It was a few minutes to one.

‘I’ll try and keep it short.’

It still came out long. By one o’clock, she still hadn’t got to her piece of evidence. Steve was restive. ‘Isn’t Artie due?’ he broke in.

‘He said he might be late. Hang on, the best is yet to come.’

‘Damn it,
show
me it. You’re driving me mad.’

‘Patience – So this old cow,’ Mooney said, ‘kept yelling and sneezing upstairs, and he kept trying to get rid of me …’

At ten-past one, she had actually got to the thing.

Steve quietly watched her.

‘So what is the relevance?’ he said.

‘Christ – can’t you see? If he’d
seen
this black dumping stuff in Colston Street, what’s he doing writing about it in
Sevastopol
Street, a good three miles away? And trying it out in different kinds of handwriting. It’s a
draft
. And if he’s sent the police the finished copy, which presumably was the intention, well damn it – I’ve got the only link, and it’s got to be him, hasn’t it?’