The Victim in Victoria Station (20 page)

“Mr. Shepherd, I—” There was a sharp click before I finished saying the name.

Walt Shepherd. Walt Shephered. Why did that name sound familiar?

Then the penny dropped, with a very loud clunk. Good grief, Bill Monahan's partner! Now the sole owner of Multilinks, though he didn't know it yet. Dear heaven, now what?

Now was the time to call in the police, that was what. Matters were getting out of control. And I had some proof, now, of the accusations I was about to make. And with a very angry, very high-handed corporate executive getting into the act, I had no real choice left.

Scotland Yard would be the place to call, I supposed. I'd be routed through all kinds of bureaucratic levels until I got to the person I wanted. And the first thing they'd ask me, at all of those levels, was my name. And the second would be why I hadn't told them all of this before.

Well, it would all be very unpleasant, but I'd just have to deal with it. It wasn't entirely my own fault, after all. I'd tried to tell them before.

Yes, and just what was I going to tell them? That there had been a dead man in a train a couple of weeks ago. Why hadn't I reported it? Oh, someone else was to have reported it, yes. And who was this alleged victim? WHO? And what made me think that? Well—because he'd told me about a computer program. No, I couldn't remember the name of it, but my friend had guessed—no, I'd really rather not get my friend involved. Anyway, I knew I was right because the man in question was missing. And what made me think
that
? Because I'd gotten a phone call from his partner. He'd called the Multilinks office here.

Ah. And what were you doing answering the phone at Multilinks? Oh, you were working there, I see. Without a work permit. Without any official documentation whatsoever. Under an assumed name. Yes. And your real name, madam? That's Mrs.—oh, yes, your name is different from your husband's name. And your husband's name?

What in heaven's name would Alan say when he got a call from Scotland Yard asking if he could identify a very suspicious woman masquerading as his wife?

I gritted my teeth and picked up the phone. It would simply have to be done, that's all.

“Oh, Mrs. Wren.”

I started guiltily and put the phone down again. Mr. Grey stood by my desk looking disapproving.

“I hope you weren't about to make a personal call, Mrs. Wren. That is not allowed here, you know, not approved at all. Oh, dear, I don't know what might not happen to someone who did that, particularly a new employee. I shouldn't advise it, I really shouldn't.”

“I—I was answering a call,” I said to his unblinking gaze. “They—it must have been a wrong number.”

I sounded as convincing as my fourth-graders whose dogs used to eat their homework.

“Yes, of course.”

That was exactly what I used to reply. And I would just look at the child until he turned red and confessed.

I looked at my watch. I was not nine years old, and I wasn't about to be treated as if I were. “It's really past time for me to go home. Was there something you wanted before I leave, Mr. Grey?”

“Oh, you're leaving. I see. Yes, I wanted you to find some back memos for me, but it can wait until morning. Good night, Mrs. Wren.”

“Good night, Mr. Grey. Don't forget to lock your office door, and close your window. Mrs. Forbes said to remind you.”

“Yes, yes. Mrs. Forbes fusses too much.”

I had to leave after that. I wouldn't have put it past Mr. Grey to be lurking by the door to make sure I didn't place that illicit phone call after all.

Or, perhaps, to listen in.

Well, I wasn't sorry to delay the evil moment a little longer, until I got back to Tom and Lynn's. It might not seem quite so impossible, with them on hand for moral support.

There was, I had discovered that morning, a shortcut to the Underground. If I cut through a narrow passage to one side of the building, I would go past the back gardens of the Multilinks house and the vacant house behind it, on Woburn Place, and avoid the heavy foot traffic on Northampton Way at that time of day. No one ever used the passage, apparently, and I wanted the solitude to think.

There seemed to be an unusual number of crows around, or rooks, or ravens—large black birds, anyway, circling the garden of the vacant house behind Multilinks and cawing hoarsely. I shuddered. They reminded me of a terrifying movie that had given me nightmares for weeks. What, I wondered, had upset the birds?

Or, no, they weren't upset. They were feeding on something. Not a dead cat, I hoped. Nigel had taken the white cat back to Sherebury in an attempt to nurse it back to health, but there were bound to be other strays in the neighborhood. Not really wanting to, I took a closer look in spite of myself.

The body wasn't really very well hidden. The crows had found it easily enough under the bush. All I could see clearly were the feet.

Feet clad in narrow, light brown shoes that looked as though they would pinch.

I suddenly felt very cold, despite the sticky heat of the day. There was a low brick wall on either side of the passage. I groped my way under an overhanging spirea to the wall farthest away from the birds and their meal and sat down, hard. The world was having an alarming tendency to swoop and spin. Better put my head down.

I was in that position when someone came along the path, whistling at first and then suddenly stopping dead still. Something kept me from moving, some instinct like that of a hunted rabbit. I scarcely breathed.

“What the bloody hell—here, get away, you! Shoo!”

My heart did stop beating for an instant, I swear, until I realized he was shouting at the birds. Then there were some rustling noises and a thump. He was over the wall.

“God!” It sounded almost like a prayer, and was followed immediately by a series of retching sounds. I swallowed hard and concentrated on not listening.

Rustles and a thump again, and the sound of feet running toward Woburn Place. Just when the sounds had almost died away, I heard the cry of “Police! Help! Murder!”

Very quietly, I crept out from under my spirea and walked back to Northampton Way. Whatever my future contact with the police might be, I had no wish to confront them right now over the body of poor Mr. Dalal.

It took all the self-discipline I possessed not to get sick on the Underground. With the heat and the press of humanity—many of whom had not bathed recently, and some of whom were munching on a predinner snack—I have never liked my fellow creatures less than on that ride. One of them came aboard eating something crunchy and greasy that smelled of curry, and I nearly lost it right then.

Fortunately I had only two stops to go, and I managed to make it to the surface, where I stopped, clung to a pillar outside Victoria Station, and inhaled great gasps of the fresher, cooler air. I was very unpopular, obstructing the flow of that great river of men and women hurrying to get home. I didn't greatly care.

I was only ten minutes from the Andersons' house, but I didn't walk there until I'd ducked into the station and bought a bottle of sparkling water. It wasn't cold, but it was wet and clean, and it rinsed the flavor of a good many things out of my mouth. I was able to walk in the front door on Chester Street with a more nearly normal countenance, and in nearly complete control of my digestion.

At least I thought I looked normal, but when Lynn saw me, she cried out. “Dorothy! What is it? You look like you've seen a ghost!”

“I have,” I said. “Or a dead man, anyway. I guess they're not quite the same thing, are they?” I started to laugh and was, in an instant, in the grip of full-fledged hysterics.

Lynn looks rather a lot like Katharine Hepburn, and has a good deal of the same hardheaded, practical approach to life. She wasted no time dithering but ran out of the room and returned in a moment with something that she clapped to the back of my neck and something that she held under my nose. I choked, coughed, and proceeded to get sick in the dishpan that she had also thoughtfully provided, while she sponged my face and held my head.

When, weak and spent and thoroughly ashamed of myself, I had stretched out on her couch, she returned from the bathroom and stood at my side, hands on her hips.

“That's better,” she said critically. “You look like hell, but at least you don't look like you're going to pass out.”

“Your treatment was very effective,” I croaked, my throat raw from vomiting. “What on earth was it?”

“Ice on the back of your neck and ammonia in front of your nose. Together they're an almost sure cure, but sometimes the ammonia makes a person sick.”

“Yes, well.”

The door of the house, one floor below, opened and closed. “Anybody home?” called Tom.

“Up here.” Lynn turned with lean-limbed grace and went to meet him, probably to warn him about their bothersome guest.

Tom can be tactful when he wishes, but he also knows when to go straight to the point. He came upstairs at once, walked into the living room, and looked me straight in the eye.

“A dead man?” he said.

“Could I have something to drink?”

Lynn brought me ginger ale. “No alcohol yet,” she decreed. “You've had a shock, and your stomach is still iffy. Ginger ale settles the stomach.”

It did seem to, actually. I sipped a little and then, as baldly as possible, told them.

“It wasn't so much the body. I didn't really see anything but his feet, poor little man. It was the crows …”

My voice faded, and Lynn frowned. “Don't talk about them. And don't think anymore about what you saw. That's over and done with. The question is, what do you do now?”

“I think,” I said with reluctance, “I think I have to see it through.”

There was immediate protest, as I knew there would be, but I felt strong enough now to argue. “All right. You have common sense on your side. I'll admit that. I was almost ready to go to the police this afternoon with all that I knew, or guessed. But don't you see that this murder has changed everything? For one thing, I am now a material witness who has run away. The police wouldn't have been very happy with me before. Now they'd be livid.”

“But you're Alan's wife,” objected Lynn.

“That doesn't give me the right to break laws, which I have assuredly done. And I don't want to involve Alan if I can possibly help it. He may be retired, officially, but he's still very active in police work, and think what the scandal sheets would do with this! Besides, I'm still incognito at that office. How long do you think that would last if the police knew my name?”

“They'll know soon enough, anyway,” put in Tom. “They'll be swarming all over Multilinks tomorrow morning, talking to everyone.”

“Not until they identify Mr. Dalal, they won't, and that may not be for some time. I can't imagine that the murderers would have left any identification on the body.”

“Am I to take it you have no intention of helping them with the identification process?” Tom's voice was very dry.

“I do not.” Mine was fully as arid. “Lynn, I'm really feeling much better. Do you think I could have a little something in this revolting stuff—or instead of it?”

Lynn complied, I suspect with the intent of lowering my resistance, for after I'd had a sip or two of bourbon, she returned to the attack.

“Dorothy, you simply
can't
go back to that place! Do have a little sense. They're killing people left and right!”

“But they have no reason to kill me,” I said patiently. “They don't know who I am, they have absolutely no reason to connect me with that woman on the train who saw Bill Monahan, and even if they did, they don't know that woman poses any threat to them.”

“They know someone was snooping the other night,” said Lynn.

“Maybe. Maybe not. But they don't know it was me, or I'd be out on my ear. Listen, Lynn, this thing is about to come to a head, I'm sure of it, and with any luck at all I'm going to have everything buttoned up in a day or two. I can look after myself for that long.”

The argument went on for another drink or two, wandering from the point as our minds lost a little of their focus. Tom was finally moved to exact a promise from me.

“All right. I can see you're determined to have your own way, D. And I admit you've been right often enough in the past to have a point. But I am absolutely going to the police with this on—what's today, Tuesday?”

“Monday,” said Lynn, as I wailed, “But, Tom!”

“—am going to the police on Thursday morning with the whole story unless you've managed to work out the mess by then, D. And I'll go tomorrow unless you'll promise me, faithfully, to back out at the first sign of personal danger. Agreed?”

Reluctantly, I agreed.

I
never promised, though, to let Tom and Lynn in on everything I was doing. I had some ideas up my sleeve that I was pretty sure they wouldn't like, but it was time to take some direct action. I was tired of simply gathering information.

I sneaked down to the kitchen after the two of them had been in bed for a while. I didn't dare make real coffee; they might smell it. But I rummaged in the cupboards, discovered an elderly jar of instant espresso tucked away in a corner, and made myself a very strong cup of it. It tasted terrible, but the jolt of caffeine helped chase away the effects of a difficult day and a fair amount of bourbon.

I waited an hour. Surely they'd be sound asleep by now. Moving as quietly as I could, I went into Tom's study and looked up a number in the phone book.

I am a rabid Anglophile. I admit it. I love its castles and villages, its people, its roses. I wallow in its history and culture, and I love the bustle and excitement of London.

There are aspects of England, however, that I do not admire, and one of them is its gutter press. English presses publish some of the finest newspapers in the world, but they also publish some of the very worst. And winning the award for sleaze and sensationalism, hands down, is the
Daily World
.