‘Drugs. . illegal immigrants?’
‘Yes, my thinking also — not expressed yet — but those are the lines I am thinking along. So, you have had a chat with Frankie Brunnie?’
‘Yes, and the upshot is that we won’t be instigating disciplinary action against him.’
‘Good. I am relieved.’
‘He is consumed with guilt over the death of the office manager.’
‘J.J. Dunwoodie?’
‘Yes, that’s the man, but that is not the reason we are not proceeding against him. What clears him is that the office manager permitted him to remove the watering can, even though Brunnie might well have coerced him into doing so without the ability to foresee the consequences. The fact remains that the watering can was nevertheless removed with the consent of the office manager. We have taken a statement from him but we still have to take a corroborative statement from a. . DC Yewdall.’
‘Penny Yewdall, yes.’
‘The practice of obtaining fingerprints like that is widespread anyway — did it myself once or twice. Can’t use prints obtained like that to prosecute, but it’s very useful to know who you’re dealing with.’
‘Yes. . yes. . and Brunnie has helped this case enormously, and I understand the guilt you mention. Frankie Brunnie is a very ethical, steadfast human being. I have always found him to be a gentleman.’
‘Good. Well, just the interview with DC Yewdall and we’ll wrap it up.’ Garrick Forbes stood.
‘Oh. . I visited Archie Dew’s widow.’ Vicary also stood.
‘How is she?’
‘Bearing up but feeling the loss, and her daughter is still in residential psychiatric care.’
‘Wretched woman, must be difficult for her. . He was so near retirement and that little toerag who shot him will be on the outside soon.’
The two men shook hands. ‘I’ll phone you in the spring; we’ll take that trip out to Northaw Great Wood, then have that beer.’
‘Yes, please do,’ Forbes turned to go. ‘I’ll look forward to that.’
‘Mr Vicary?’ The woman opened the door of her house on Oakhampton Road, Mill Hill. She had short hair and a ready smile, and had worn well with age; even though she was in her early middle years, Frankie Brunnie thought she still looked fetching in tee shirt, jeans and sports shoes.
‘No.’ Brunnie held up his ID. ‘I am DC Brunnie, this lady is my colleague, DC Yewdall, we are calling on behalf of Mr Vicary. He is our senior officer.’
‘Ah, I see. Pleased to meet you anyway. Do please come in.’
The two officers stepped over the threshold into a warm house — too warm, Penny Yewdall thought, and she did not envy Mrs South her quarterly heating bills — but the warmth within explained why she wore a tee shirt. The house was a neatly kept, 1930s semi-detached property, which smelled strongly of furniture polish. Mrs South invited the officers into the rear room of the house, which looked out on to a long, narrow garden and to a cemetery beyond that.
‘We are very lucky to be here,’ Mrs South announced, ‘privileged. . the cemetery beyond the garden and the golf club at the end of the road; lots of open space; fairly clean air considering that this is the middle of north London. Do sit down.’ Mrs South indicated the vacant chairs and settee with a very, Brunnie thought, French-style flourish of her hand. ‘My mother phoned me,’ she said as she and the officers sat in the armchairs. ‘It is about Rosemary Halkier. .’
‘Yes. You are Mrs South. . once Miss North?’
‘Yes.’ The woman grinned sheepishly. ‘It always causes comments to be made. I was Pauline North from Leyton, I am now Pauline South from Mill Hill. . gone northwards to become South. The jokes are endless. I went to Sussex University and married one of my tutors; he was a junior lecturer then. He’s now a professor at Royal Holloway. I teach children now my own are up and away. . no regular post, I am a supply teacher — explains why I am home today. . no phone call from the agency.’
‘It seems you have done very well.’ Penny Yewdall smiled.
‘Yes.’ Pauline South nodded briefly. ‘I am very fortunate. . successful husband, two lovely boys. . good marriage. I am fulfilled but Rosemary should have had the same. Was it really her on Hampstead Heath?’
‘Yes,’ Brunnie replied, ‘I am afraid it was.’
‘Oh. . and I have all this — still alive and all this — but I appreciate it. I appreciate each day because I know that tragedy can strike at any time; you just have to open the newspaper and read about a tragedy striking some poor family.’
‘That’s a good attitude to have.’
‘It’s the only attitude. So, how can I help you? I knew that something had happened to her.’
‘Oh?’
‘Well, I mean, no details, just that some ill must have befallen her. . some misadventure. Like the fell walker who vanished up in the Lake District and three or four years later his body was found in a mountain stream. The search party swept the wrong area for some reason, and then years later another walker attempted to cross the stream at the same location and so found the body — just ten feet either side and he would have missed the corpse. But that wasn’t Rose, she wasn’t adventurous like that. . but she wouldn’t walk out on her life and reinvent herself. That’s something that people could do up until the end of the Second World War, but now our National Insurance number and health records follow us everywhere. . all on computer. So really that just left foul play to explain what happened to her. . but she was bright at school, she could have, should have, gone on to university, but she married a fairground worker. Can you believe that? And her life never recovered. Some mistake.’
‘So, tell us about Rosemary, if you can,’ Brunnie said, ‘we are trying to piece together her life at about the time she disappeared.’
‘Well, I was at university, but at home. . must have been between terms, and I well remember her dad coming to our door asking if we knew where she was. Poor soul, he was in a terrible state.’
‘What do you know about her social life at the time?’
‘Not much. We went out for a drink occasionally, just two Leyton girls together. . up the boozer, like good local girls. The landlord of the Coach and Horses knew us, as did the locals, and he and the locals would not let anyone bother us. We just had a couple of glasses of wine and a right good chitchat. . but we were drifting apart by then, and we never went up town together.’
‘Understood.’
‘Any man friend? Rosemary’s man friend, I mean.’
‘Just one. . and not a good one.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. Strange name. .’ she took a deep breath. ‘How embarrassing, so strange that I have forgotten it.’ She forced a smile. ‘It’ll come. . it’ll come, the name is that of the American film star, except his surname is that of the first name of her boyfriend at the time. What was it? What was it? Oh. . Curtis, that’s it. Tony Curtis was the actor and Curtis something was Rosemary’s boyfriend.’
‘That’s very interesting.’ Brunnie turned to Yewdall, who raised an eyebrow.
‘Is it?’ Pauline South asked.
‘Yes, it dovetails neatly, very neatly into other information we have.’
‘I see.’
‘So what did she tell you about Curtis X?’
‘Curtis X, I like that. Curtis X. . well, she was not comfortable with him; he seemed to have betrayed her and she seemed frightened of him.’
‘Betrayed her?’
‘Perhaps that is the wrong word. Not so much betrayed as deceived her. It was a case of the old, old story of the man who could charm the birds down from the trees and then once ensnared, turns out to be a monster of a person who destroys all and everything he comes into contact with. And she fell for his charms, possibly as a reaction to the fairground worker she had married and who she was escaping from — that made her even more vulnerable to Curtis X’s charms.’
‘Oh. .’ Penny Yewdall groaned.
‘You’ve met the type?’ Pauline South asked.
‘Oh yes. . often, all too often — not personally but in police work. We have met the victims. . either dead or alive, the victims of the easy charms of the predatory psychopaths who can smile as they kill.’