Truth Dare Kill (10 page)

“Recognise this?” I placed a lady’s blue leather shoe on my desk. I’d given it a clean and brush-up. A fine shoe. She cocked her head.

“Do you have the other one? They were a good pair.” She took another drink, a bigger one. Did nothing get through to this iceberg?

“Sorry. I thought I was looking for one heel, not two.”

Her eyes flickered in surprise. “Most amusing, McRae.”

I thought so. “Do you want to hear the story?”

She nodded but it was nearer a shrug, almost as though she was being polite. But I didn’t want this over in a hurry. And I wanted her to feel I’d earned her advance. I told her of my hospital trek and the Somerset House fiasco. Finally I explained how simple it had turned out, once the message got picked up by his wife from his club.

“What’s she like?” She meant what did she look like. That’s women for you.

Always squaring up to the competition.

“Quiet, but tough underneath. Took it surprisingly well.” I didn’t tell her that neither of them was finding his death over-traumatic. But then I couldn’t rustle up much of a wake either for Tony Caldwell.

“Did she say anything about how, or rather where, he died?”

“She knew about you, if that’s what you mean. Maybe not who you are.”

“But what am I, eh, Mr McRae?” She stubbed out her cigarette. “Well that seems to be that.” She was pulling on her gloves. “You’ve been most efficient and thorough. I think we can all move on now, don’t you?”

She uncrossed those trim legs of hers and stood up to go. I stood up too.

“He was cremated, his wife said. So there’s no stone or anything.”

She blinked, as though startled at the thought. Why hadn’t she asked about that?

It would have been normal to have wanted to pay your respects, wouldn’t it?

There had been something between them, hadn’t there?

“Right. Thank you. That really does close the case, doesn’t it?” She must have misinterpreted my waiting expression. “Do I owe you any more money?”

“No. Not at all. In fact it didn’t take me a full week. I owe you

”

She was waving it off. “Goodbye, Mr McRae. I hope your business does well. Good hunting and all that.”

We shook fingers and I watched her disappear down the stairs, clacking musically all the way. I went back to my desk, put my feet up and pulled her glass over.

It was barely touched. There was lipstick round the edge. I covered her impression with mine and knocked back the remains. I could taste her through the Scotch.

I topped up my own glass and sipped and wondered why I was being lied to. This didn’t smell right. Her act was wrong. There was no grief; there are stiff upper lips and then there are people who just don’t care. It could be that I was simply confirming what she’d known all along; she had already come to terms with it. But the natural reaction would have been to want to don the black rags and the veil, visit the grave, shed a few last tears, put it all behind you. Women never miss a chance to act a part. Even when they’re lying, they make a better job of it than this. A dab of the eyes, a downward glance, a question or two about the funeral was all it would have taken.

It was also a bit too bloody convenient for my liking. The man I most wanted to talk to in all the world about my missing moments gets killed by an old bomb.

His lover doesn’t go to one of the big detective agencies; she asks me to do the checking. And there’s no body, not even a headstone. Bloody convenient.

TEN

I woke in the early hours, roasting on the spit of my troubled dreams, and overwhelmed with the familiar image. The woman is lying face down. Blood oozing from the back of her head and gathering in a pool below it. There’s another pool under her hips. I’m holding a bayonet. Red drips from it and from my hands. The blood feels hot and slick. I’m pleading with her not to lie in the blood. That she’ll get cold. And then I hear the running feet

I got up and made some tea and had a fag to calm me down. It was nearly light anyway. So I sat and watched the winter sun edge up over the rooftops. It didn’t warm me. I shouldn’t follow the stuff in the newspapers. I certainly shouldn’t go on a sodding tour of inspection. Serves me right for being a ghoul. With a brain as precarious as mine, I need to avoid inflammatory situations.

I decided to cook some porridge, a comfort food that reminded me of home and my mother. It was also cheap. I was on the point of excavating the grey lava from the bottom of the pot when a little voice took me unawares and banished my night time blues.

“Knock, knock. Is there enough for two?” Val said.

I was inexplicably happy to see her beaming face, and grinned at her. “Only if you have it with salt. I’m not letting you English put sugar on my porridge.”

She screwed up her face and came into my room. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Its end curled round her neck. She looked just fine.

“I’ll try it. Why not? We eat anything now, don’t we? Horses, yum, yum. Powdered eggs, goody, goody.”

I laughed. “I’ll get my mum to send us some haggis.”

“That’s where I draw the line.”

“One of my guys caught a snake in the desert and ate it.”

“Yuk! Was he sick?”

“Violently. I think he ate the wrong end.”

I lifted up the top of the fold-down table and sat out two bowls on the red Formica. When I make porridge I always make too much, so it stretched easily. I spooned the steaming sludge into the bowls.

“Watch, mind. There’s nothing hotter.” She flicked her ponytail back. “It’s nice like that,” I said staring appreciatively.

She blushed and tugged at it. “It’s too long. Drives me mad. I’m thinking of having it all hacked off. Like those magazines.”

“Don’t do that! You’ve got lovely hair.”

She smiled. “OK. I’ll keep it. For you.”

I took a chance. “There’s an old Scottish custom that says if you share porridge with someone, you must share a secret.”

She looked wary. “A likely story.”

I pressed on. “I’ve met you twice now and I don’t know anything about you, except your name. I don’t even know where you live.”

She shook her head and laid a scalding spoon of porridge back down. “Don’t make it hard, Danny. I told you, I don’t want to get involved. I just want to be able to drop in and have a natter. I don’t want the third degree.” Her eyes were determined. I was scared she’d up and leave. And what did it matter where she lived or what she did?

“OK, pal. Just curious.” I smiled.

She sighed. “Look, there’s this bloke. He hurt me real bad. I’m trying to sort things out. Maybe then I’ll tell you the whole thing, ok?”

I knew it. We’re all bastards. Was she living with him? Would she leave him? Not if I pushed her. I changed the subject. I told her about Kate Graveney and the strange coincidence of Tony Caldwell. Val seemed rapt and let her porridge go cold. Or maybe it was the salt. She had her elbows on the table and her hands under her fine jaw. Her eyes were big and dark, weighing everything.

“Why did she need you to find Mrs Caldwell? She could have got anybody to ask at his club. Women like her know lots of men. It wouldn’t have been hard.” I noticed the little bit of spite in her voice as she spoke of women like her.

“It worried me too. Like it’s all being done for my benefit. To keep me away.”

I told Val about Liza Caldwell’s comments, how Caldwell had probably told SOE

not to divulge his whereabouts. Especially to me.

It was then that Val came up with the mad idea, and I felt it take root in my brain like the seeds of a fever.

“Won’t SOE have files on you and Tony Caldwell?”

“Yes

?”

Her eyes were gleaming. “Why don’t you get in and see for yourself?”

“You mean break in?!”

“Would it be hard?” she asked, all innocence. She lit a fag.

I thought about the layout of Baker Street. It had grown like a rabbit warren to take up virtually the whole street. But I knew the records on agents were kept centrally at number 64. I also knew they were closing the whole shebang down.

They didn’t need our kind of talents anymore. So security might not be as tight as it used to be. If I could get past the guards at the door and then hide till

“This is daft! Completely daft! You’re a madwoman, so you are, Valerie Brown.

And you’re turning me as mad as you.”

“I’m crazy,” she agreed and blew a smoke ring. “But I’m not mad. Come on, eat up. I’m taking you to feed the ducks. Got any old bread? Better not take any of this stuff, or they’ll sink!”

She didn’t finish her porridge. I dunked the two bowls in water so they wouldn’t set like concrete. Then she dragged me out. The weather was kinder; broken clouds and a South westerly. We chased a bus and leapt on as it slowly eased away from the stop. We landed breathless on the platform, faces aflame and laughing. I saw nothing but kind eyes from the passengers. We must have looked like lovers.

We got off at Hyde Park Corner and ambled into the park. The rolling slopes were winter drab, and the green seemed to have leeched into the Serpentine.

Bare-armed trees stood around the flat water as though they’d been stuck in the ground upside down. There were ducks marshalling by the landing stages and hoovering up the soggy bread thrown at them by squealing kids. Val joined in and I stood and watched her and felt something turn over inside. She was so fragile.

She came back to me, smiling. “What? What you looking at, then?”

“You, you daft thing. Like a big kid.”

“That’s me. Come on. Let’s run.” And she was off. I could have caught her in ten steps but I let her run till she was shrieking and breathless. There were dozens of folk around, but all in our distance. I caught up with her and collapsed on a bench beside her. Her cheeks were glowing. I would have kissed her then. I should have. We watched the water shimmer and the ducks take off in a panic of wings.

“What happened to your dad?” she asked suddenly. She knew my mother was still in Scotland.

I realised I’d never talked about it. I could talk about it now. I remembered the day like it happened last week. I was sixteen.

“My mum always waited by the window every evening. Darning socks or polishing the brass. But she’d keep looking at the clock. To make sure he came home. One night he didn’t. You know what happens when a pit collapses? And when they finally get the bodies out?” I didn’t expect or wait for an answer. “They lay all the men out in rows on open carts at the pithead. Then the women walk along and pick out their men.”

I felt her tense beside me. “They were all wearing shawls and sobbing and holding on to each other. I walked with my mum. She was clinging to me as if I could stop her from drowning.”

I paused and watched the wind whip up ripples on the water.

“She used to kneel at his feet and take his boots off every night when he came in from the pit. He never asked her to do it; it was just something she did. To thank him for putting food on the table, a roof over our heads. He’d stick his feet in the grate. I can still see the steam rising and smell his socks.”

Val said nothing, just looked at me with the same anguish she’d shown at midnight in the park.

“This time, she knelt by the cart and held on to his boots. As though she could stop him. As though she could haul him back from his journey. She kept them for me.”

I didn’t tell Val that I still carried the guilt of not being down there with him, like the other sons. Maybe I could have done something. I was young and strong and quick. Instead, I was poncing around in a school blazer, talking about university when there was real life and real death going on all round me.

Val got me up and walking again. Right round the lake. We were quieter now, closer. It was the best day I could remember. I would have stopped time. No, that’s not true. I felt this was the start of something and that the best would come if I had the patience. To crown it all, we got off the bus near my flat and the newspaper seller was calling out, “Read all about it, read all about it.

Ripper caught! The Soho Ripper caught!” I bought a copy. They were going fast. I greedily scanned the text.

“Look at this, Val. They’ve caught the bugger.”

“Oh, that would be fine, Danny!”

She wouldn’t come in, not even for a cup of tea. I said I wanted to see her again, go on a date, a flick or dancing even. Not that I’m much of a dancer. But she wouldn’t say when or if we’d see each other again. I watched her waltz off into the night. I wished the day could begin again. I climbed the stairs whistling and nursing all the flavours of the afternoon, making sure I wouldn’t forget a single moment.

I propped the paper on my table and dug out my folder with the other clippings.

I sat down and read the news in detail. I read it again and turned to some of the earlier reports. I began to rub my scar. This didn’t feel right. On my third reading I became convinced; they’d got the wrong man. They were quoting my old friend Detective Inspector Wilson of the Yard.

A suspect has confessed to the murder of all three unfortunate women. The suspect was apprehended yesterday evening after a tip-off from a vigilant member of the public. The suspect is an army deserter who was apprehended in the act of burning a blood-stained army greatcoat in the backyard of the block of flats.

The constables were attacked with a bayonet which may be the murder weapon. A search of his flat revealed other stained items of clothes. All items have been sent for analysis.

The journalist hadn’t let it rest there. He went on to quote neighbours. They described the man as drunk and violent. He frequently had women round to his flat. Often these sessions would end up in fights, verbal and physical. There were reports of disturbing smells coming from the flat and late night screams.

Great, but it didn’t fit with my view of the murderer. Whoever had been doing these killings went about his business quietly and discreetly. He wouldn’t make a song and dance about it and draw attention to himself. He wouldn’t be so stupid as to wear an army greatcoat on his murderous outings. Nor would he stand in the backyard of his flats and try to burn the evidence. The real murderer was wicked, not stupid; evil, not careless. He wasn’t a loudmouth with a penchant for drunken parties.