The Chelsea Murders (9 page)

Knew that feeling.

M
OONEY
altered her voice whenever the
Globe
rang that
weekend
, which was often, to let them know she wasn’t in.

Nothing was going off at half-cock this time. People had to take what was good for them; couldn’t have all their chocolate at once.

She’d seen the mileage they’d got out of her item on Friday. The Saturdays showed the field in full cry; and the police had said nothing. She hadn’t expected them to. No, all hers at the moment. And a first-class moment.

A nasty one, true, had come from Wertmuller. Her moves on the rapture front had been planned for Sunday, but he rang on Saturday to say he had to go to Huddersfield to see an Atkinson.

‘A what?’

‘A harp, Mary. A most beautiful specimen. It needs restoring.’

‘Oh, does it?’ Mooney said, dully.

‘It’s a great privilege, Mary,’ Wertmuller told her seriously, ‘just to be asked to lay hands on such an instrument.’

‘Well, in that case –’

‘Mary, if you wish me to leave the Atkinson –’

‘Of course I don’t. You
must
go and lay hands on it. I won’t hear another word,’ Mooney said, knowing pretty well what would happen to the Atkinson if she laid hands on it.

‘Can our evening still take place – perhaps on Monday?’

‘Of course it can, Otto.’

‘Ah. I’ll just wait till then, Mary, dear.’

Well, damn it, just listening to him was a benison. And after all it was only two days to – whacko! – Monday. Then the great restorer could really crack on.

Meanwhile, she had plenty to occupy her.

So did Frank, who had an interesting wheeze of his own
going
just then. He’d made a new chum at Shaft, so it was a busy week-end all round.

And the same for Artie, who continued dishing out the duck,
Chez Georges
, without allowing it to interfere with his other plans.

Steve carried on selling jeans all Saturday, and all Sunday carried on with what was best for Steve.

Abo just carried on having a lovely time.

Warton put in some hours at the office, and then some more in the garden, thinking steadily.

His spirits darkened as he thought.

His correspondent, whoever he was, was either having a game with him, or seriously planning a murder. He couldn’t tell which.

The message had to be taken seriously, in any case.

L.H. of Chelsea had to be contacted and warned. A glance through the telephone directory, with its close-packed Halls, Hammonds and Harrisons, and the numbers of them with L initials, had already shown phoning not to be a valid way of doing this; even if everyone in Chelsea was connected to a phone.

An early thought was that the message might portend action at joke level. It might herald an In Memoriam announcement; perhaps for Leigh Hunt himself. The dates had proved unlikely here (Hunt was found to have died in August 1859, and it was now late October); however, the idea had suggested a valid
procedure
, so Warton had written out a chit.

First thing Monday morning, all classified ads booked in the London dailies and in the local press would be checked. (Cover: fraud or public mischief, at Summers’s discretion.)

He had set some other procedures going at joke level.

At fatality level there was only one procedure: publication.

There were such stunning arguments against this, that as he got the wallflowers (now very stalky) out of their boxes and into the ground, Warton simply wished the C.C. the best of luck.

First and foremost was that if no attack took place, it would show the C.C. as a colossal bloody idiot. It would produce not only the alarm he wished to avoid, but a harvest of similar
warnings
from that brigade who regularly dispatched hearses to people still alive and fire engines to places not on fire.

All would have to be investigated; grossly misusing
manpower
, muddying trails.

And there were some good trails. Steady work had already identified where paper and lettering might have come from.

The paper, of limited make and discontinued style, had gone four years ago to just two London wholesalers apart from the main art schools.

All the art schools’ supplies had been exhausted long ago. The wholesalers had none left, but two art shops in the King’s Road, Winsor & Newton’s, and Brierley Bros., still had some.

The type style had proved unexpectedly more difficult. Though unusual, small quantities had been widely dispersed, and some hundreds of man-hours had gone into tracking it down. What had been established was that within a fifteen-mile radius, only two outlets had it; Chelsea Art School, and Brierley Bros.

More to the point, Brierley’s old-fashioned duplicate invoice book showed that six sheets of cartridge paper and six sheets of Letraset, type unknown, had been sold on Wednesday morning. The dozy assistant whose initials were on the carbon copy couldn’t remember the sale, and as stock-keeping was not up to par, there was no other evidence.

Still, Warton’s money was on Brierley’s.

It was near the post office. It was notably disorganized and dusty. It had both sets of materials and actually a specimen of Letraset Gothic still curling in the window.

Not conclusive, of course, but nothing was conclusive here.

There was an abstract glee about the messages that disturbed him. The sender had a special point to make: a person not bound by normal considerations. A dangerous person.

He thought that par for the course, as far as the C.C. was concerned, would be about ten o’clock. He’d ring by then.

The C.C. rang at a couple of minutes to.

‘I think we have to take it as a practical joke, Ted?’

Warton caught the interrogative, but he simply said, ‘I see, sir.’

‘After the nonsense in the Information Room, it would look as if we’re being particularly sensitive – h’m?’

‘Ng.’

‘You don’t take it seriously, then?’

‘I do. I take it very seriously.’

‘Well, that’s my view at the moment.’

‘Appreciate your telling me, sir,’ Warton said, and hung up, pleased at his forecast; at the same time even more disturbed by it.

The young lady with the head had two weeks to go then.

He got in early on Monday, and the Incident Room quite soon began to come up with items.

The classified columns of the
Telegraph
were due to carry a four-liner for a Lancelot Horniman who had taken off after sufferings bravely borne (no flowers); and the
Chelsea News
was to commemorate in its Friday issue the tenth anniversary of the death of Leslie Hoop (We linger here with Thoughts so Sad, As constantly we Mourn you, Dad): both genuine.

The evenings, when they arrived, were a bit of a mystery.
News
and
Standard
both niggly, though naturally sketchy so early in the day: they carried the same agency photo of Mrs Thatcher chatting up a young copper outside her door. The Globe was strangely subdued; little piece by their bloke Packer, obviously written after Friday’s shenanigans in the Yard’s Information Room.

Something must be going on there.

‘Damn it, tell her I want to speak to her myself.’

‘Well, I’ll
try
, Jack.’

‘What is this bloody uppity nonsense?’

‘She can’t blow her sources, Jack, is what she’s –’

‘On the
paper
, she can’t blow them?’

‘She isn’t on the paper. That’s what she’s –’

‘Put her on that bloody phone right away. Isn’t there any bloody loyalty in the world? If I make myself bloody clear?’

‘Crystal bloody clear, Jack.’

But when Chris got through, Mooney said she couldn’t speak just then; which was the case, because not only Len Offard
(
Sun
), but Pip Stewart and Rex Goddard and Sheila Cohen (stringers, respectively, for the
Express, News
and
Guardian
) were all watching her like hawks from the double-banked lines of roll-top desks. So she hopped round the corner, and called Jack from a phone box there.

On the two occasions that she’d previously spoken to him, she’d had to wait ten minutes. He was in her ear immediately now.

‘
Mary
!’ Jack said. ‘What are your problems, darling?’

‘You see, Jack,’ Mooney said huskily, using his given name for the first time, ‘it’s very difficult for –’

‘You have to understand how we’re fixed, Mary. With a story like this, one has absolutely got to piss or get off the pot. We
must
have more, darling. Now, I want you to come in and see me right away.’

‘Well, if it’s humanly –’

‘Have you got more?’

‘I’m getting it. I can’t –’

‘From police sources?’

‘No. Really, Jack, I –’

‘
Maniac
sources?’

Mooney had a quick double-take. Maniac?

‘It’s so delicate, Jack,’ she said, almost instantaneously, ‘that I’d sooner you didn’t press. I don’t feel free to –’

‘Feel free,’ Jack said.’ I want you to. If there’s any
professional
problem, I want it sorted out. We can’t get stuck like this! I hope you’re getting the point, Mary. If there’s something you particularly want, you have my assurance –’

Mooney got the point, but she wanted better assurances, and at another time, so she said urgently, ‘I’m going now.’

‘
Mary!
’ Jack hollered. ‘You’re sure of those notes?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘There hasn’t been another, has there?’

‘Yes,’ Mooney said, after the slightest pause. ‘But –’

‘Oh, my God, bloody come
in
here, darling! … Darling?’

But Mooney had hung up, and was looking through the dusty glass into humdrum Fulham, with a feeling of distinct unease.

She hadn’t meant to mention other notes.

However, she had, and at the
Globe
a new front page took shape.

Warton heard about it a couple of hours before he saw it.

The C.C. didn’t call himself. He put Warton’s immediate superior, a Commander, on to the job.

‘Their chap Packer here has been asking questions, Ted. Where are they getting it from?’

‘A girl called Mooney, their stringer. I told the C.C

‘Where is she getting it?’

‘Give me a direct order, sir, and I’ll ask her. That would mean confirming her stuff. Which is why I want the direct order.’

‘Okay, I’ll see what I can do.’

But no order came, so Warton did nothing; and in the
afternoon
the
Globe
did.

Warton read thoroughly through the stuff. All innuendo and barrel scrapings. They hadn’t got much, but they’d evidently got something. He wondered at the primary source of even this little.

He stayed till a quarter-to seven, and went home, and had just entered the house when the phone rang for him.

Rose had barely taken his mac, and she stood with it watching as, with a strange half-scowl which she knew to be a sign of satisfaction, he said, ‘That so? Is that a first name or – Ng.
Mrs
, eh? Okay. Coming in.’

Mrs Louisa Honey was the latest. Manresa Road, Chelsea.

H
ONEY
was a cleaner in the chemistry labs of Chelsea College, but she also put in a couple of evenings at the bar of the Students’ Union. There was a social that night (a birthday), but she had only been able to stay till seven.

As she hurried out in the dark, an arm came round her waist.
Some of the students had been a bit high when she’d left. She said, ‘Here – cheeky young devil!’ and turned.

As she did so, another hand covered her face.

She gazed up, astonished. A huge head loomed above her. It had an open cupid’s mouth, radiantly smiling; and rank upon rank of finely waved hair.

As she drew breath to scream, she felt her senses going. Just before she passed out, the cupid’s mouth bent tenderly to her own.

She was still hysterical when Warton saw her, in her flat at World’s End at half-past eight.

‘Chloroformed, sir,’ the sergeant said.

The police doctor had already seen her; she was mildly sedated but still coming out with small whooping cries.

It had been someone ‘ever so tall’. He had had a big hair style and a face of peculiar chalky whiteness (mask?).

With the odd ‘ng’ here and there, Warton had built up a fairly complete picture.

The person who was ever so tall was also very slim; there was a funny smell about him, hardly like a man at all. Warton had asked if she’d ever had chloroform before, and apparently she hadn’t. While she was swooning away, this tall person had continued kissing her. His lips were horrible, like rubber. In view of Honey’s distinctly homely appearance, some eyebrows were raised at this.

Warton’s conclusion was that her account was accurate. He thought that the tall person with the chalky white face and the rubbery lips had certainly given her a kiss, and also an insufficient whiff of chloroform on a pad.

He pushed his way through the Pressmen in the courtyard of the tenement block, and later found another gang of them at his HQ. When he emerged, it was almost eleven, and the reporters were still waiting for him. Many local stringers had been alerted and were also present; but their ranks did not include Mooney.

Mooney, by then, was into a different scene.

Wertmuller had arrived prompt at eight with a bunch of chrysanthemums.

He seemed more massive than ever in the small flat, and also rather awkward and constrained. A glass of sherry didn’t do much to improve this, so Mooney put a slug of Martell into him, and also in to herself.

This seemed the right fuel, and after another (with a graceful exit to keep the oven under control), she had him humming along; harps and Huddersfield, harmony and Hamburg.

She’d hesitated over what background music to put on. The classics seemed to be coming it a bit, even Vivaldi, which she’d ringed him as, but something along gentle ballad lines couldn’t hurt; so a clutch of troubadours discreetly alighted one after the other on to the turntable.

As they inoffensively warbled, and fantastic Otto, as she noticed, got mildly pissed, she stationed herself companionably nearer him, though at a lower level, in fact on the floor, where without inconvenience he could knead a little if the inclination took him, and she could rest her glass on his knee. In no time at all one long finger was stroking her wrist, and a whole
handful
of them her hair.

All this was so exactly what was ordered, by way at least of a relish, that she could fairly hear herself purring. He talked about his work, and the German scene, and how, professionally, the English was incomparably better; he confided he was really here to take lessons.

‘Are you, Otto? You didn’t mention that.’

‘The shop asked me not to, Mary. I didn’t want to keep it from you. They thought it would be bad for business,’ he said, twinkling, ‘if you wrote that I was simply a student.’

‘But you’re more than that.’

Well, he was; but for these specialized restorations, the work rooms of the Victoria & Albert Museum were where one had to go and learn. ‘You won’t write it?’ he said.

‘Of course I won’t.’ But at mention of the magic names, a pang had gone through her. She’d been groping for just the image; something romantically German, well pre-jackboot, mildly tutorial, in general terms gorgeous. Albert. Her Prince
Albert. And Otto was a better name than Albert, and Mrs Otto better still. Mrs Otto W. Well, damn it, Mooney thought, and had a job keeping her hands out of his hair.

To give them something to do, and since the stuff was doing such a great job, she uncoiled herself upwards and poured out another couple of slugs.

He had a further surprise for her when she turned. From a breast pocket he had removed something like a paper-wrapped bread stick.

‘For you,’ he said, shyly proffering it, ‘if you like it.’

‘For me?’

‘If you truly like it, Mary.’

Wonderingly, she unwound the wrapping to reveal, somewhat mystifyingly, a rather dicey little flute, much battered.

‘Oh, well, my goodness,’ she said, working hard at liking it, ‘it’s lovely.’

‘I will make it so. It’s a
Löwenherz
, Mary.’

‘
Is it?
’ Mooney said, almost falling over.

‘Oh, there is no doubt – a genuine Löwenherz. Only think, little Lotte found it for me at a bazaar, she is so clever,’

She had been hearing of this Lotte, the only blot on the horizon so far; his small musical sister who seemed a bloody sight too clever for her years.

‘In a Löwenherz we find great purity of tone,’ Otto instructed.

‘Do we?’ Mooney said. God, he was marvellous.

‘If you could – have we some other music?’

Had
she! She practically destroyed Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan in her haste to get Vivaldi at it.

‘Ah. Very good,’ he said. ‘The gigue.’

He held the thing horizontally and blew, and did indeed get some very nice tones. He smiled and nodded as he did this, and she smiled and nodded along, until excessive nodding from his direction indicated that she was intended to dance along rather than simply nod along.

Ever willing, she hitched up her skirt an inch and prettily obliged, until it occurred to her that six-footers didn’t show to tremendous advantage doing a jig in a small room, so after a second or two more of thudding about, she packed it in. ‘I don’t
know what I’m thinking of, ‘she explained.’ You must be ravenous. We can jig a bit later.’

This could have been better expressed, it occurred to her, en route to the kitchen, but the nuance had escaped him, and he was looking professionally enough at the Löwenherz as she
returned
.

She fed him his shrimp cocktail, and he exclaimed properly enough over her chicken casserole; very good, though she said it herself. It was his turn to let her know what was what in the matter of the Hock, and hers to instruct him on syllabubs.

He was rather a glutton for interesting facts, as she was
herself
, and they had rather a feast of them in the candle-light. In this light she knew she was looking by no means bad, and he himself so absolutely whacko that for lengthy periods she didn’t attend to what his delicious voice was actually saying.

They’d been going there and back over the relative
advantages
of life in Germany and England. For herself, Mooney didn’t care if they lived in the forest, like Hansel and Gretel; or in Timbuctu, come to that. But it apparently depended upon instructional and professional facilities.

‘Ah, Mary, it is so good to talk to you,’ he said, stroking her hand. ‘To have somebody I
can
talk to.’

‘Is it, Otto?’

‘Wonderful. Always, always I have wanted a sister.’

‘Well, you’ve got one, haven’t you?’

‘Ah, Lotte. My
little
sister.’ With a rather secretive smile he was taking a photo out of his wallet. ‘But always I wanted an older sister. You are her, Mary.’

She’d had sherry and brandy and wine, but it couldn’t be that, could it? In some bemusement, Mooney looked at the photo he was showing. A photo of her?

It wasn’t of her.

‘Who’s this?’ she said.

‘Elke. My fiancée. Isn’t she beautiful?’

The little blonde cow was smirking away in the photo.

Mooney didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know whether to throw it back at him, or tear it up, or simply to tip up the whole table in his lap.

His stupid slow voice was belling out the awful phrases.

‘We will be married, but what, for her musical education, is the best? Here undoubtedly … her mother … my father … the professional possibilities … all my life someone to whom I can really talk … Ah, Mary, dear, don’t you love her?’

‘I’m tired,’ Mooney said.

‘Ah!’ He was immediately attentive. ‘You have worked today.’

‘That’s right.’ Like a dog. And other days, getting the
ingredients
for his sodding casserole.

He was enormously contrite. ‘I will go now.’

She didn’t stop him. She didn’t wrestle him to the floor, or kick him in the crutch.

‘I will restore the Löwenherz. I knew you’d love it, but after all, we’d talked so little, Mary. It was a question of immediate sympathy. Right away I saw in you that sister – but one has to be certain. I will attach, I think, a little cord, a leather – thang?’

‘Thong,’ Mooney said.

‘Yes. It will go – just so. On this wall, I think. Don’t you think that is the best?’

‘Yes,’ Mooney said.

‘Yes. You are tired, Mary dear. I can see it.’

That’s right. Like everybody’s very oldest sister.

She let him go. She laughed. She cried. She remembered the jig she had danced for him, metaphorically as well as literally. Hansel and Gretel. Mrs O.W. Oh, well. Systematically, she broke the Vivaldi record, and then broke the halves, too. Then she stuffed the chrysanthemums in the bin. As for the flute, he knew where he could stuff that. But still her energy was not spent, and she thought what else to do.