‘Yes, I got that from records. And his mother died when he was ten. Nelly Stover told me. There was a stepmother later, but she’s gone, too. He didn’t seem to have any family. Nor friends, come to that.’
‘Did she know about the Wapping business?’ Sinclair asked. ‘Before you told her, I mean?’
Billy nodded. ‘She said she couldn’t understand what Alfie was doing in that sort of company. Said he was a sad little man.’
While he was speaking, the head waiter had appeared beside their table. He bent to whisper in Sinclair’s ear and the chief inspector rose to his feet.
‘Would you excuse me? I’ve a call.’
He was back after only a minute, and it was plain to see from his expression that something momentous had occurred. He signalled at once for the bill.
‘That was Bennett,’ he said, glancing at Madden. ‘Do you remember me telling you about that French detective who came over here before the war to help us with a case?’
‘The one who’d been in charge of the Fontainebleau case?’
Sinclair nodded. ‘Commissaire Duval. Well, he’s just been on the phone from Paris. Don’t ask me how he got through, but it seems our guess was right. It’s Marko we’re after. Duval says there’s no mistake.’
‘How does he know?’ Madden’s voice carried an edge of excitement. ‘How can he be sure?’
‘I’ve no idea.’ Sinclair rose and his two guests followed suit. ‘But we’ll find out soon enough. Bennett wants us back right away.’ He touched Madden’s arm. ‘You, too, John. He made that clear. He’s got something to tell you.’
‘Angus … at last!’
The assistant commissioner looked up from his desk as Sinclair came in. Several sheets of paper covered with his scrawl lay on the blotter in front of him; he’d been peering down at them.
‘Madden, how are you?’ He had just caught sight of the chief inspector’s companion. ‘Come in, please.’ He rose and they shook hands.
Bennett gestured to the chairs that were already lined up, facing his desk. His face was a little flushed.
‘Duval asked for you first, Angus, but you were out, so the switchboard sensibly put him on to me. He’d been trying for a couple of days to get through. Said in the end they’d “gone to the top”, whatever that means, but it’ll give you some idea of how important they think this is. Unfortunately we only spoke for five minutes before the telephone people cut us off. However …’
He paused to catch breath, and as he did so he sought Madden’s eye.
‘Angus will have told you already. It’s the same man.’
Madden nodded. ‘We were wondering how they knew.’
‘It was that list Solly Silverman had on him. They’re diamonds that were stolen in Paris on the eve of the German occupation. From a furrier, Duval said. I’ve got his name here …’ Bennett scrabbled among the scattered sheets of paper. ‘Sobel …’ He peered down through his glasses. ‘He’d bought them that same day from a dealer. He meant to make a run for it to Spain. He was Jewish, you see …’ Glancing up, he found the chief inspector’s gaze on him.
‘Was you say-?’
‘Yes, he’s dead. Murdered. Garrotted.’
‘By the man who stole the jewels?’
Bennett nodded. ‘The one they call Marko. They’ve sent us a copy of their dossier on the case, which will explain how they know it was him. That and a lot besides. It’s in the MP’s pouch that came over today. We should have it by tomorrow. There’s not much more I can tell you. The line was bad. Duval kept having to repeat himself. He sent you his regards, by the way. I asked him how things were in Paris. He said “bloody awful”.’
Bennett took off his glasses. He rubbed the bridge of his nose.
‘There was one other thing he mentioned; it’s of special concern to you, Madden. I believe it answers your question.’
Their eyes met.
‘This furrier who was murdered in Paris. Sobel. He was Polish by extraction and he’d offered to give two young Poles a lift to Spain in his car. They wanted to escape as well. Duval doesn’t know their names, but one of them was a young woman, and it seems she arrived at Sobel’s house minutes after he was murdered. It’s possible she saw the killer, Duval says. She may even have come face to face with him.’
Bennett brooded for a moment.
‘He didn’t finish telling me about it — we were cut off then — but I gathered she fled from the scene and the police were unable to locate her afterwards. They had to assume that she and her compatriot, whoever he was, managed to escape from France by some other means. At all events they’ve never been found. We’ll learn more about it when this dossier arrives. But it struck me at once: she must have been the same young woman you had working for you.’
‘So that was it!’ Madden, his face in shadow now that the afternoon light was dying, sat stunned. ‘ always knew there had to be a reason why he killed her.’
‘He must have caught a glimpse of her the other night … the killer … this Marko. In the Underground, perhaps. If he recognized her then it’s odds on they did come face to face in Paris, and that would have been enough …’
‘Enough?’
Still dwelling on what he’d heard, Madden’s attention had strayed.
‘Enough reason to kill her.’ Bennett explained, and after a momentary pause Madden dipped his head in silent agreement.
‘Being the man he is.’
16
Informed by the Military Police headquarters at Chichester that it would be mid-morning before the package sent from Paris the day before reached London, Sinclair elected not to alter his accustomed routine and went to see Bennett as usual at half-past nine, leaving Lily Poole behind with orders to let him know the moment it arrived.
‘Tell Inspector Styles to stand by, too.’
His deepening involvement in the inquiry that had started with the murder of Rosa Nowak had not relieved the chief inspector of his other duties, and as ever he brought with him the crime report for the preceding twenty-four hours to run through with his superior. But the now familiar litany of pilfering and black-market dealing compiled by the various metropolitan divisions held little interest for either man that morning, and before long Bennett reverted to the subject that occupied both their minds.
‘I couldn’t get to sleep last night. I kept thinking of that girl coming up to London to see her aunt, never dreaming … but why didn’t she report it? What she witnessed in Paris? Why stay silent all these years?’
‘John was wondering the same thing. We discussed it before he went off yesterday.’ Sinclair settled himself in his chair; his gout had eased somewhat and he was thankful for the break from nagging pain. ‘But it’s not that hard to understand. If she’d stayed on in Paris to give a statement to the police she might well have ended up being trapped there. They would almost certainly have held her as a material witness. And once the Occupation was in force, what would have become of her then? She did the human thing: she saved herself. Perhaps the man she was travelling with helped to make up her mind. But whatever the explanation, I can’t find it in my heart to blame her.’
‘Granted, but when she’d reached safety here — when she was settled in England — why not go to the police then and tell them everything? It’s not as though we would have taken any action against her.’
‘I suppose that’s true …’ The chief inspector’s tone belied his words. ‘But could she be sure of that? After all, she’d committed a serious offence: she’d left the scene of a murder. And she was here on sufferance, remember. She was an alien in wartime, with all the sense of insecurity that brings. It would have been tempting simply to forget what had occurred, or at any rate push it to the back of her mind. To tell herself there was no way she could help the French police, not with Paris under German occupation.’
The assistant commissioner thought for a moment.