‘A name-?’
‘A new name. He registered with her as Henry Pratt, which suggests he has a new identity card. He may well have had it all along. A man like him would want to be prepared. He stayed with her only for a week, and that indicates he’s been switching addresses since leaving Wandsworth, which is what I’d expect. And thanks to Poole we’ve also got a ready-made explanation for why he’s remained in London. It seems he had unfinished business with this private investigator. I’m having the new name circulated to all stations in the Metropolitan area at once, and if necessary I’ll extend that nationwide.’
Lily Poole’s dramatic irruption into the assistant commissioner’s office two hours earlier had been the prelude to a flurry of action. No sooner had Sinclair dispatched Billy Styles to Paddington to speak to the detectives dealing with the Quill murder than word of Ash’s possible whereabouts had reached him via a telephone call from the station commander at Brixton.
‘And there’s something you can do since you’re here,’ he had told Lily, who had accompanied him back to his office, still carrying her bowl of what he now learned was beef dripping. ‘You say Quill spent time inside recently. Get on to records and find out whether he was banged up in Wormwood Scrubs and if so whether his sentence coincided with Alfie Meeks’s.’
The answer to both questions, it turned out, was in the affirmative. For a period of six months their sentences had been concurrent.
‘So Meeks could well have given Ash his name,’ he told Bennett now.
‘Then you believe Quill’s murder is definitely linked to the case?’ The assistant commissioner took his glasses off and slipped them into a case. He looked at his watch. Sinclair knew his superior wanted to escape — he had a long drive to the country ahead of him — but saw he was reluctant to leave with a case they were both so deeply involved in coming to a head.
‘It’s more than a possibility, but we need confirmation. I’m hoping Styles will get that at Paddington. And it’s vital we find out who this Polish girl is, the one Quill was paid to search for.’
‘Could it have been Rosa Nowak?’ Bennett asked. ‘Perhaps Ash was looking for her after all.’
The chief inspector pondered his reply.
‘I’ve been asking myself the same question,’ he admitted.
‘But on the whole I think not. From what Poole said it sounded as though Quill had been employed more recently. Since Rosa was murdered, at least, which suggests there’s a second girl involved. We need to speak to this Molly Minter again, find out exactly what it was Quill said to her. We don’t know for certain it was Ash who killed him, but reading the facts as I do, the murder bears his mark. He employs a man to do a job and then eliminates him. It’s a pattern. Wherever he goes and whatever he does, he slams the door behind him. But we’re catching up with him. The net’s closing.’
Closing, yes, but oh so slowly, the chief inspector thought as he waited in his office for further word from either Paddington or Brixton. Used to the sound of footsteps passing by in the passage outside and to the presence of Lily Poole in the room next to his, he found the silence oppressive. With Christmas a day away only a skeleton staff was on duty at the Yard, and while Sinclair would not have been averse to keeping the young policewoman with him — he’d come to admire her single-minded determination and already regretted the day when he would have to return her to Bow Street — he had turned a deaf ear to her pleas to remain by his side.
‘Think of your poor aunt, Constable. She sent you out with that bowl of dripping hours ago. It’s time you delivered it to its proper destination.’
But as she was leaving, he had checked her.
‘You distinguished yourself today. You used your wits and it won’t be forgotten. You have my word. Now go home and enjoy your Christmas.’
He might have said more. Earlier, before they had parted, Bennett had expressed his own appreciation of the young woman’s initiative.
‘It took some nerve, pushing her way into my office. But she did the right thing. I like her dash. When and if you come to write that report for the commissioner, I’ll add a word of my own. She’s just the kind of officer the force needs and I intend to make sure he knows that.’
Shortly after one o’clock the sound of heels rapping on the bare wooden floor of the corridor outside heralded the return of Billy Styles from Paddington. He had taken Grace with him, having earlier reported to Sinclair that Lofty Cook was down with bronchitis and would be off for a few days.
‘We still don’t know for sure whether it was Ash who topped Horace Quill,’ he announced even before they had shed their coats and hats. But we’ve got a name for the client who called on him two nights ago.’
‘It wasn’t by any chance a Mr Pratt?’ Sinclair asked in all innocence, and had the satisfaction of seeing Billy’s jaw drop in amazement.
‘Blimey, sir! How’d you know that?’
When he heard Sinclair’s explanation, he shook his head in wonder.
‘So he’s changed his name again. I don’t know how he does it. You’d think he’d get confused. Wake up some mornings wondering who he is.’
While Grace, on Sinclair’s instruction, went upstairs to the canteen to order tea and sandwiches to be sent down for their lunch, Billy gave the chief inspector a resume of what he’d learned.
‘They found the name in a pocket diary Quill kept in his flat, which was just a room above his office. The name “Pratt” was jotted down on the 22nd with the time of the meeting, which was 8 p.m. What’s interesting was there was no diary found in his office and nothing on his desk to indicate what business he was dealing with. It looks as if whoever killed him took the time to remove anything incriminating. Quill’s notes on the case he was handling, for example. Or maybe his report to the client. The desk had been rifled, too, and someone had been through the filing cabinet. Roy Cooper has had the room and the banisters dusted for prints; we’re going to compare them with what we lifted at Ash’s flat in Wandsworth.’
‘Tell me about the murder,’ Sinclair said. ‘The report in the crime sheet said his head was crushed.’
‘That’s right. With a brass vase, big as an urn, filled with soil and a dead plant. It must have been standing on a table behind the desk near the window. Quill was sitting at his desk when he was hit — the chair was overturned — and it looks like the vase came down straight on top of his head, which means the killer must have been behind him. He couldn’t have done it from in front; the thing was too heavy.’
‘Strange …’ the chief inspector mused. ‘Perhaps he was feeling nostalgic.’
‘Sir-?’ Billy didn’t understand.
‘That was how Ash killed Jonah Meeks thirty years ago, only he used a rock.’
Billy shrugged. ‘I don’t know about that. What I thought was he didn’t want to use the wire again, give us such an obvious lead. The vase was handy, and provided Quill was otherwise occupied, which he probably was, it would have been a simple way of doing it.’
‘Occupied? How?’
‘He was obviously at his desk, as I say, and this bloke — Ash, if it was him — must have got up from his chair and started wandering about. Maybe he went over to the window. Anyway he got himself near enough to the vase so that he could take hold of it. All that time Quill was sitting at his desk, and from the evidence it looks as though he was counting some money.’
He was interrupted by the door opening. Joe Grace came in carrying a tray loaded with a teapot, cups and a plate heaped with sandwiches.
‘Thought I’d better bring it down myself, sir,’ he said to Sinclair as he laid the tray on the chief inspector’s desk. ‘They’re short-staffed upstairs. Didn’t know how long we’d have to wait.’
There was a brief pause while they helped themselves from the tray. Not hungry himself, Sinclair accepted the cup of tea Billy poured for him, but waved away the plate of sandwiches. Sipping the hot liquid, he glanced out of the window and saw that it was snowing again.