A Little Murder (10 page)

‘Then what did you do? Crack open some champagne?’

Felix gave a rueful smile. ‘I think that little indulgence may have to bide its time. It doesn’t do to count chickens—’

‘But you must admit it does put a safer stamp on matters. One less problem to consider in the scheme of things … Or rather,’ Cedric added slyly, ‘one less problem for you. And talking of which, one trusts that awful mackintosh no longer survives to dazzle us all. Circumstances may alter cases, but as you’ve just said yourself, this is no time to be careless.’ He knew it was hardly the moment for such needling; it was far from fair but sometimes he just couldn’t help himself: Felix was the softest target!

Yet guilt mingled with mild disappointment when his companion ignored the bait, and gazing at the languid Pierrot murmured pensively: ‘You know, he really was
such
a vulgarian …’

‘I’d like you to interview her,’ said the inspector to Greenleaf.

‘Who?’

‘This bint that Harris has traced, Thistlehyde’s girlfriend. Apparently she was seeing him regularly at the time of the murder.’

‘Which one – his or Marcia Beasley’s?’

‘Both, which is why she could be useful.’

‘What’s she like?’ asked Greenleaf.

The inspector shrugged. ‘Young, much younger than him – and French. Works as a waitress at one of the Lyons Corner Houses. Leicester Square, I think.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Lulu – Lulu Lapin.’

‘
Lapin?
’ Greenleaf exclaimed. ‘But that means rabbit! We had to learn a whole lot of those French words at school and that was one of ’em. Seems a funny sort of name, if you ask me.’

‘I am not asking,’ said the inspector. ‘And since you are
so very proficient in the French language you will doubtless pay particular attention to her
rabbiting
on, won’t you?’ He grinned complacently. ‘Go on, quick about it. I’ve put her in the next room.’ He cocked his thumb at the office across the passage.

Greenleaf sighed and unearthed his notebook. He had been hoping to get away early and pick up a fish-and-chip supper and a bottle of stout; instead of which for the next half-hour or so he was to be closeted with the fractured burblings of some foreigner. Just the ticket! He rose wearily …

On the whole, he reflected, Mademoiselle Lulu Lapin was a sizzler and far too good for the dead man. (A view she clearly shared.) But unfortunately her speech proved just as fractured as he had feared and twice as rapid. However, she was easy on the eye if not the ear and he found the interview mildly congenial … certainly several notches above that of his recent encounter with the fearsome charlady!

From what he could piece together the girl was some sort of art student pursuing a course at the Courtauld Institute and working part-time as a Lyons Nippy to support her six-month sojourn in London. She had met Thistlehyde at a party in Soho (one of those louche Bohemian affairs, he surmised gloomily), and promising to introduce her to the best and biggest names of the London art world the painter had swiftly made her his girlfriend. Evidently it was a transaction she had grown to regret. ‘Pouf!’ Lulu Lapin had fumed, ‘I meet not any nice big name – all
leetle
and big boring! And he, he big boring too – and leetle in
evair-ee
way!’ She rolled her
r
s and her eyes on the qualifying term and enquired if Greenleaf understood what she meant.

He felt himself blushing, but with some pride enunciated carefully, ‘
Oui, Mademoiselle, je tout comprends
.’

This elicited shrieks of mirth and a spate of Gallic gesticulation of the sort he had witnessed only in the films. However, the gaiety ceased abruptly; and leaning forward she intoned darkly, ‘You seenk I kill the monsieur?’

‘Er, well not really,’ began Greenleaf, ‘but what I want to know is whether—’

‘I did like to, but now ’ees too late. And besides, I ’ave better things to do. I am very busy girl.
Alors
, too busy to be ’ere all alone with Eenglish pol-eece and much fearful!’ She took out a handkerchief and fluttered doleful eyelashes.

‘You misunderstand me, Mademoiselle,’ said Greenleaf hastily, ‘I just want to know whether Mr Thistlehyde said anything to you about the afternoon he visited Madame Beasley. For example, did he mention seeing anyone there or close by perhaps?’

‘But of course he see someone, he see Madame Beasley! She in nude – but she
old
, not like me.’ Lulu gave a dismissive laugh and wiggled a shapely ankle before launching into a torrent of impatient French. Clearly the interview was a tiresome interruption to her crowded day.

‘But,’ persisted Greenleaf stolidly, ‘apart from the lady in the nude, did he say if he saw anyone
else
?’

‘No, no person else. Nobody.’

‘Really? One might have thought that—’

‘Except old fart with lawnmower.’

‘
What?
’ Greenleaf was startled. And then clearing his throat he asked if those had been Thistlehyde’s exact words.

‘
Comment?
’

‘Are you sure that’s what he said?’ She nodded. ‘But who was he talking about? Where was this … er, person?’

She shrugged majestically. ‘I know nothing, that’s all he say. I must now go. I have important date with nice man,
verrai
beeg noise in art world. He take me to the Mirabelle. Not like Clovis to some meengy Italian joint!’ She tossed her head scornfully.

Lulu’s mind was clearly on higher things than lawnmowers, let alone their operators – of whatever ilk. And realising that nothing further could be gained, Greenleaf released her to join the big noise in the Mirabelle.

‘She obviously meant the gardener,’ said the inspector. ‘I’m surprised you hadn’t already checked that.’

‘Wasn’t on your list,
sir
,’ Greenleaf replied.

‘That’s as may be, but there’s such a thing as initiative. Young Harris has got it – remember what he was like with those coal scuttles, followed up every single one of them.’

Greenleaf sniffed disparagingly. ‘Didn’t get us anywhere, though, did it? All in use and all accounted for.’

‘Not the point. It’s the
spirit
that counts and that’s what we’ve got to show His Eminence up there.’ He nodded towards the superintendent’s office on the floor above. ‘Like I said, Miss Rabbit must have meant the flipping gardener. Look for him.’

‘No point. There wasn’t a gardener.’

‘Oh no? So how do you know that? You told me you hadn’t checked.’

‘Because according to the neighbours she didn’t have one. It’s one of the things that annoyed them. Mrs Gill said the place was in an awful state – long grass, unweeded flowerbeds, and fruit trees always hanging over their walls attracting the squirrels. Apparently they had hinted to her a number of times that she should get a chap in but she never
did.’ He grinned. ‘I gather she told them the cat liked it that way, made him think he was a tiger in the jungle.’

The inspector sighed irritably. ‘So who was this old fart, then?’

Greenleaf shrugged. ‘One of any number I assume …’

‘Probably making it up,’ said his wife that evening. ‘Girls like that, they like attention. Tell you anything to get noticed.’ She sniffed and gave a brisk swirl to the simmering mince.

‘Girls like what?’

‘Well, you know – foreign and going out with artists and such. From what you said he was old enough to be her father!’ She tugged at her apron as if to underline the point.

‘That’s as may be,’ answered Greenleaf eying the mince and wishing it were something else, ‘but I don’t think she wanted attention particularly. Seemed only too keen to get off on her date. Besides, I shouldn’t have thought a French girl would be especially familiar with the word “lawnmower” – not what you’d call part of her normal vocabulary. No, it’s more likely she heard it from the bloke.’

‘Presumably like the other word,’ said his wife tartly.

‘Exactly.’

Greenleaf levered off the cap from a bottle of Guinness, and was about to pour himself a glass when his wife said, ‘
What
did you say the date was?’

‘Of her murder? The fourteenth. Why?’

‘It was raining.’ She put the mince on the table with a clatter and turned to dish up the greens.

‘So what’s that got to do with it? And anyway, how do you know? It was weeks ago.’

‘I
know
because that was the day I visited Daisy and it
poured every step of the way there and every step back. Never let up for a minute. Soaked to the skin I was. Ruined the perm! It got all frizzy.’

‘Which Daisy?’

‘Well you don’t think I mean the one in John O’Groats, do you? Daisy in Hammersmith, of course. It was her birthday and the rain put a regular dampener on things. We were going to have tea in her back garden. Had to go to the Palais instead.’

Greenleaf grunted. ‘All very sad, I’m sure, but I still don’t see—’

She gave a pitying sigh. ‘If you knew anything about anything, Herbert Greenleaf, you would know that people do not mow their lawns in pouring rain, old farts or not. The wet grass clogs up the blades. So you see I was quite right, it’s obvious the girl was lying.’

‘Hmm … Or he was,’ conceded Greenleaf. Then turning the topic, he said brightly, ‘This mince – it’s much better than it looks.’

‘Well,
really!
’

The matter nagged him. Assuming that his wife was right about wet grass, and since Marcia Beasley was known not to have employed a gardener, the French girl’s assertion did seem curious … Perhaps the encounter had been in the street. He wondered vaguely if the denizens of St John’s Wood were given to trundling their lawnmowers along the pavements in pouring rain. It seemed unlikely. Yet despite his wife’s conviction, it seemed equally unlikely that Lulu had been lying – or for that matter Thistlehyde. Neither witness had struck him as being particularly sly or humorous. A bit of a mystery, really. But then it wasn’t the only one. There was
that message attached to the piece of coal in the woman’s wardrobe:
To fuel the flames of memory
.

What memory? Obviously of some past event – but how
far
in the past? A few months ago – or years? What exactly had been Marcia Beasley’s connection with fires? Perhaps if he turned Harris’s muzzle in that direction something would emerge. Meanwhile he must get back to that friend of the victim, Miss Vera Collinger. The two women had known each other in the war. Surely she could come up with something useful, or at any rate more useful than anything the niece had so far offered. The young woman seemed to think she was above it all – a fact that had immediately led his superior to conclude she was bound to be implicated. ‘Prime suspect, that’s what,’ the inspector had confidently pronounced. ‘One gets a nose for these things. It’s often the hoity-toity; they think themselves immune. You mark my words.’ But as Greenleaf had suspected, there was nothing in their subsequent investigations to support such assurance, and he had managed to dislodge that particular bee from his superior’s bonnet. The unfortunate thing was that as yet nothing better had taken its place …

Rosy was more perturbed by the news of Thistlehyde’s murder than she had chosen to let on to Leo. She liked her colleague and yet was conscious of the age gap between them, and though he was fun she was hesitant to confide much of her personal life or feelings. True, sitting in the staff café at the museum listening to him speculate about Marcia and the fate of Clovis had been a diverting break in the morning’s agenda; but now that she was at home alone and with time to reflect she felt once more a surge of unease.

Why on earth had foolish Clovis met that awful end? Certainly he had always been tiresome but hardly deserving of elimination! But then, of course, the same could be said of her aunt. What
was
it that the two had done to goad such violence? And could the killings really be linked as Leo had insisted? She sighed. Yes, probably.

Propping her elbows on the window sill she stared out at the sallow sky above the chimney pots and watched the leaves of the plane tree as they drifted listlessly down to
the pavement. From somewhere there came the pinking of a solitary thrush, and at the street corner she could just discern the lights of the tobacconist switched on early against the gathering dusk. The smell of winter stirred in her imagination, and with a pang she knew she was afraid …

Pathetic! She retreated into the room, switched on the standard lamp, and settled on the sofa with a copy of
Picture Post
. But it was not the distraction she had hoped. Images of naked Marcia absurdly crowned on the drawing room floor swam into her mind and mingled with those of blood-soaked Clovis felled at his easel. With an effort she concentrated her mind on the page in front of her, but the scenes remained.

She cast the magazine aside and tried to rally herself. ‘This will not do, Rosemary!’ Memory of her mother’s brisk voice rang in her ears. ‘No time for mopes!’ Rosy agreed but could do little. What was happening to her, for goodness’ sake? After all, she had faced some pretty grim times operating that searchlight at Dover – terrifying really; yet she didn’t recall feeling quite so disturbed then as she did now. Somehow she had always coped, risen above the fears, and facing the death-laden skies simply got on with the job. But this was different – a different sort of fear, and certainly a different situation … In the war the threat had been
known
, obvious, and she had shared it with others; it had been their common plight. But in this she was alone, and what at first had been shocking but manageable had suddenly taken on a macabre taunting insistence.

She tried to rationalise matters. Yes, her aunt had been murdered but there was absolutely no reason to think that the niece would be the next victim – and certainly the police had made no such assumption. And despite having known
Clovis she was hardly what one would term a bosom pal. (Had there been any?) Careful to keep her distance she had ensured their association had been tenuous in the extreme. No, clearly she was not in personal danger. But all the same it was unnerving to think that being familiar with both victims, the killer would have an
awareness
of their shared circle and its associates. Indeed, could perhaps be one of that circle!

For the first time Rosy began to wonder if she should volunteer additional information to the police and generally show greater eagerness to assist their enquiries. Initially she had been loath to get more involved than was absolutely necessary; but the new turn of events put an even murkier complexion on things. It was surely her duty to be as useful as possible. When interviewed by Greenleaf about Marcia she had answered his questions and cooperated as best she could, but her contribution had been minimal – precisely because she had known so little. But since then things had moved on: there was, for example, Donald’s story of her aunt shouting about the coal scuttle in her sleep, his revelation that she had been in the SOE in the war, and his tale of the document that she wanted to place securely. There was also Miss Collinger’s evident search of Marcia’s desk – possibly in pursuit of that same document – and the woman’s insistent curiosity regarding Marcia’s recent activities or preoccupations. And what about that lump of coal she had found in the wardrobe? The more she thought about it the odder it seemed – and it struck her that in some bizarre way it was to do with the coal scuttle.

Were these matters the police needed to know? Perhaps they were aware of them already. Or perhaps not. Surely it would be sensible to take the initiative and tell them all she knew … Except, of course, she didn’t actually
know
anything.
Nothing tangible, nothing first hand: mere suspicions and other people’s words. She pondered the odds of being seen as an officious crank seeking the limelight, as against those of upright citizen keen to assist the solving of two horrific crimes. Even-stevens, she concluded, and shelving the matter turned back to her perusal of
Picture Post
.

An item caught her eye: a retrospective article on the launching of the Festival of Britain accompanied by a graphic picture of the Skylon and the Battersea funfair on the banks of the Thames. Despite what the writer insisted, she knew that the most awesome ride had not been the Big Dipper, let alone the flying Zeppelins. It had been the giant Rotor, that huge rotating drum in which willing victims would be spun at dizzying speed until the floor dropped away, and by centrifugal force be then pinioned like helpless flies against its whirling walls. Yes, that had been the real excitement: to be stuck to the walls of the Rotor, screaming with delicious terror – and being sick as a cat afterwards. She had tried it out once accompanied by a friend’s child. The child had been in seventh heaven; Rosy had not. She shuddered at the memory … And then shuddered again, as with cringing embarrassment she recalled the photograph in the
Evening Standard
of Marcia wedged between two sailors, her skirts up round her suspenders, blonde hair streaming in the slipstream and mouth gaping wide. The caption had read: ‘Society gal has the ride of her life!’ Yes, the memory was embarrassing all right, and yet it suddenly brought tears to Rosy’s eyes. She brushed them aside impatiently and was about to go into the kitchen to forage for supper, when the telephone rang.

It was her boss Dr Stanley. ‘I say,’ he said cheerfully, ‘I don’t suppose you want to go to the pantomime, do you?’ (The
pantomime
! With him? Was he mad?)

‘Well,’ she faltered, playing for time. ‘It’s a long time since I’ve been to one … But, uhm, isn’t it a bit early? I thought they started later in the season.’

‘It’s at the Palladium. Apparently they were let down by some other production so they are bringing the pantomime forward a couple of weeks. My mother’s got a spare ticket and we wondered whether …’

The idea of the pantomime with Dr Stanley had been startling enough – but with his
mother
too?

She started to stammer an excuse, but before she had gone far, he explained, ‘There’s a small family group organised. A mixture of adults and assorted children, and somebody has dropped out at the last minute and so I thought of you. Leo’s going too,’ he added. (A hopeful enticement?)

Still not sure of her reply, she gave a faint laugh and said she hadn’t realised that such revels were his sort of thing.

‘Me? Oh, I’m not going. No fear! This is all mother’s doing. It’s her annual treat to the family and she gets ratty if her plans are upset … So you
will
take the spare ticket, won’t you, Rosy? Otherwise I shall find myself being roped in … Look on it as my early Christmas present to you.’ (Oh yes? When had he ever given her a Christmas present, early or late?)

‘Well …’ she began weakly.

‘Excellent,’ he boomed, ‘I knew you wouldn’t let me down. Come to my office first thing tomorrow and the ticket will be placed in your eager hands.’ Before she had a chance to say anything he had rung off.

That’s all I need, she thought grimly, one pantomime after another! Yet feeling oddly cheered she continued into the kitchen to sort out supper.