The cook laughed. “You’ve forgotten where you are! All ladies here. And mostly on diets. Only healthy food on offer.”
“I suppose that makes sense. I shall enter … ‘diet varied, delicate and appropriate to consumers,’ shall I?”
“WELL, THAT DIDN’T get us very far in any direction. Up and down the U-bend and back where we started.” The sergeant was disappointed not to be hauling someone off in cuffs.
“There’s times, laddie, when a nil return is just as significant as a positive. This is one of them. We drew a blank there for the pie. Eliminated. Wherever our dead girl had her last meal it wasn’t in that chop shop. It all goes to build a case. That Sandilands will know what to do with the results. We’re here to do the steady police work that puts the building blocks in his hands. Next up—a grieving gran. Take your raincoat off and put on a sympathetic smile. We’re off to Stepney.”
They were welcomed into the small terraced house and put to sit in the parlour while Mrs. Clarke went off to make a cup of tea. As soon as they heard the tap running, Orford was on his feet examining the row of silver-framed photographs on the mantelpiece. He picked up one and silently showed it to the sergeant who pulled a face and nodded gravely.
Mrs. Clarke revealed her anxiety by her strained chatter. When they had settled to their tea, she offered them the photograph Orford had just noted. “This is Marie. Doesn’t do her justice. She has lovely rich dark hair and brown eyes. Gets those from her father. French,” she confided. “Went home to join up with the French army in nineteen fourteen when Marie was three. Never seen hide nor hair of him since. I brought the child up while her mother went out to work. When we discovered she had a talent for dancing I sold the house next door—these two were both left to me by my father—and I invested the cash in her career. It’s not cheap. All those lessons and all the dresses. She didn’t let us down. She did well. So well I hardly saw her for years at a time. Always touring abroad. Her mother died five years ago but she’d have been proud … Whenever Marie is back in London, she always stays with me, not in the digs the company provided.”
“Which company is she appearing with, Mrs. Clarke?”
“The Covent Garden lot. They start at the end of the month. She’s in rehearsals at the moment.” Her face clouded and she hesitated before continuing. “Well, she was in rehearsals. She left.”
“Left? Just like that? When was this?”
“Monday. She had a row with the man in charge. She was always having rows with someone in the company—it’s part of the life. But this time I think it was serious. She resigned. Walked out.”
“So the company wouldn’t have realised she’d gone missing? They wouldn’t have raised the alarm. As far as they were concerned, she’d packed her bags and left.”
“That’s right.” She hesitated. “She told me she’d left but … I don’t know … she may have been sacked. I suppose they’d have to, really, wouldn’t they … in the circumstances?” She fell silent and fiddled with her teacup.
In his most tactful rumble, Orford asked: “Do you feel up to telling us about these circumstances? Don’t fret … we’ve heard it all before, love.”
“She’d had a bit of a slip-up. I don’t know with who—she didn’t breathe a word. I think it must have been someone quite high up because the someone was paying the bills. Marie never asked me for a penny towards it and I know how much it costs. She was booked in at a swish little place, she said. ‘It will only be for four days, Gran,’ she told me. ‘I’ll be back and dancing again by Friday. See you then! Don’t worry! It happens to all the girls at some time or another.’ But how can I not worry? Something’s gone wrong. I’m sure of it. She never broke her word to me in twenty-two years. If she’s lying ill somewhere I want to know about it and fetch her home.”
The tears could be kept back no longer. The inspector hurried to produce a large crisp handkerchief and handed it over with a gentle, “Here you are, Missis. You’re very welcome. I always carry a spare.”
As she sniffed and gulped he remarked quietly: “She’ll be missing her gran’s home cooking, I expect.”
Mrs. Clarke looked up and managed a watery smile. “She ate like a bird most of the time. But she always tucked into her favourites when she got back home. At least she had a good meal in her when she went off on Tuesday. She had shepherd’s pie and rice pudding for her dinner. Well, lunch they call it these days.”
“That would be Tuesday, then. Midday. Look, may I take this photograph away with us?” Orford asked. “More enquiries to make but I guarantee I’ll get back to see you by tomorrow morning at the latest.”
As they walked back to the bus stop, the sergeant asked, “Why didn’t you tell her there and then? You knew, didn’t you, that it was Marie lying dead in the police morgue?”
“I did. But I have to do this by the book and check it out with Doc Rippon or Sandilands. Death is something you have to be one hundred percent certain about. But I’ll make sure I’m the one who breaks the bad news as soon as we have it confirmed. There’s never a good way to do that but I always think it comes more easily from someone you’ve shared a pot of tea with, Sarge.”
“However do you find the right words?”
“Not sure I ever do. I can never remember them afterwards. I certainly don’t trot out any prepared phrases—they deserve better than that. I know if any stranger oozed up to me ‘offering condolences’ and claiming to ‘understand my grief’ I’d poke him in the eye. But they always seem to know anyhow. Like that old lady—she knows. It’s the noises you make that matter—no one needs a fancy vocabulary to be death’s mouthpiece.”
CHAPTER 18
The Riley slid over into a passing place and skulked unseen, shaded by the low-hanging boughs of a larch tree with which it blended perfectly. The driver tipped the peak of his grey tweed cap down over his forehead, funnelling his gaze directly at the Maybach Zeppellin yards ahead of him on the road. He found the packet of Woodbines he’d bought in Chelsea. They’d somehow seemed appropriate to the old banger he was driving. The ashtray was full of stinking old stubs. The owner, whoever he was, must be wheezing like a squeeze box. He took out a cigarette and lit it. Just a local man who’d pulled over to have a quiet smoke in a lay-by, if anyone was asking. He puffed twice and chucked it out of the car window in disgust.
The motor had been easy to nick. Piece of cake. He’d walked around the car park of a modest commercial hotel just off Oxford Street and spotted this unremarkable grey job conveniently parked with its nose pointing out to the street. Couldn’t be doing with that hot-wiring rubbish—he had the technique all right but he was no tuppenny ha’penny car thief. He’d just sneaked unseen into the hotel, nipped into the lift and gone up to the first floor. A minute later he’d clattered breezily down the stairs calling out a greeting to the dozy night clerk who’d looked up, startled, and anxiously checked the clock, waiting for his relief.
“Can you let me have the keys to my car? Left my shaving tackle in the boot. There they are—second row down.” He pointed. “The Riley.” He gave the registration number. Naw! No need to bother the valet. I don’t want him poking about in my boot.”