Jerusalem Lane was deserted. The two lamps which served as street lighting for its length had just switched on, giving an ineffectual dim white light as they struggled to warm up. The shop fronts at this north end of the Lane were all in darkness, and any lights in occupied upstairs rooms were heavily curtained against the night. Kathy thought of the Dore etching in Hepple’s office, with its teeming mass of humanity seething down this street. All ghosts now.
She walked towards the door of Hepple’s office, and was rewarded by the reflected glow of the windows of the Balaton Cafe, facing into the little square ahead, and the smell of cooking. There were two front doors beside the brass plate, one for the solicitor’s office, and the other for Sylvia Pemberton’s flat. Kathy pressed the buzzer beside the second. After a moment an unrecognizable squawk came from a small speaker on the wall.
‘It’s Kathy Kolla, Miss Pemberton, from the police. We met this morning. Could I trouble you again for a minute?’
Another squawk came from the box and the front door gave a click. Kathy pushed and went in. The stairs rose in front of her in two straight flights to the second floor, where Sylvia Pemberton stood waiting for her.
She left her wet coat in the hall and they went into a snug sitting room, filled with furniture as ample as their owner.
‘I’d just settled down with my usual G and T, wondering whether to chance the Balaton’s goulash or put up with frozen chicken in front of the TV, so I’m very pleased to be intruded upon. I’ll call you Kathy, shall I? Sergeant seems rather formal in front of your own gas fire, don’t you think? And I’m Sylvia. Let me pour you one. It doesn’t taste the same if you’re with someone who isn’t drinking, and you’re not going to arrest me, are you? Not yet, anyway.’ She roared with laughter. Relaxed, her cheeks rosy with the heat of the fire and the gin, she seemed larger than life.
‘It was something you started to say this morning, Sylvia,’ Kathy began, easing back into the plump cushions carefully so as not to spill anything from the generously filled glass. ‘Just as Mr Hepple arrived. Something about the way the neighbourhood was going downhill or something. I just wondered what you meant.’
‘Ah, yes. It’s been in the back of my mind for months, and poor Meredith Winterbottom going like that just seemed to bring it all into focus. The place is changing, and the weird thing is that nobody seems to have noticed it. I mean normally the slightest thing happening in the Lane would go round like wildfire. But over the past year things have been going on that seemed… well, reasonable enough on their own, but taken together…’
‘What sort of things?’
‘Well, the most obvious were the Kowalskis selling up and moving away, and then Mr Hepple deciding to sell this place too. They both have long connections with the Lane, and two of them closing down is a big change for this area, which has really been very stable in the past. Then there’s Konrad Witz going too, and on top of all that, lots of smaller things I noticed. I do the books for several businesses around here, so I get to know how things are going, and everyone has been doing reasonably well lately, certainly no worse than before. But I noticed odd things.
‘First, Brunhilde Capek cancelled her plans to renovate her flower shop. Now she’d been going on about it for so long, and at last had actually got a builder ready, that I couldn’t believe she’d changed her mind. She said she’d run into some problems with the council over the drains, but I didn’t see how that would stop the whole thing.
‘A bit later I noticed that a couple of places seemed to be running down their stock. And then when I did Stwosz’s books last year I saw he’d started paying rent, even though he owned the place before. When I asked him, it turned out he’d sold his shop, and was leasing it back. But he didn’t really want to discuss it. Like Mr Hepple or Adam Kowalski, when you ask why, they explain it in terms which make sense for them, which is fair enough, because they’re all getting older. But so many, all at once…’
‘I see. Yes, that is odd. Mr Hepple did mention that he was closing down here, but he didn’t say anything about the others.’
‘No, well…’ Sylvia Pemberton hesitated, then said, ‘Actually, he’s not all that keen to talk about it, I’ve found. He even told me at one point not to discuss the matter with anyone in the Lane. But they’re all the same. Everyone’s been so secretive, keeping it all to themselves, and even more peculiar, they’re not much concerned at what the others are up to, and that just isn’t like the Lane at all. It’s almost as if everyone had just suddenly lost interest in the place.’
‘What about Mrs Winterbottom, was she considering selling?’
‘Not as far as I know. I didn’t do her books-she still goes to the accountant her husband had when he was alive. But she often used to have a chat to me about things she was considering, and ask my opinion.’
‘What would have been the most recent things she talked to you about?’
Sylvia Pemberton sipped her drink, thinking, and then suddenly chuckled.
‘Oh well, I remember one day, maybe six months ago, or perhaps longer, we stopped and had a chat in the street. I asked how her son and his family were. She was ever so proud of them. The older granddaughter, Alex, was doing very well at university, and Louise getting ready for her O levels. And Terry, her son-oh, he was doing so well, running five hairdressing salons in South London, and he and his wife were going off for a wonderful holiday to some place in the Indian Ocean, or something. Only Terry has cash-flow problems, Meredith explains, like all successful businessmen do, because they’re maximizing their resources. This is what she tells me, and it’s obvious they’re Terry’s words. So Terry has suggested to his old mother that it would be an excellent idea all round if she would mortgage her house in the Lane, and lend him the money so as to ease these temporary cash-flow problems.’
Sylvia roared with laughter.
‘She looks at me carefully after she’s told me this, and says what do I think? Well, I told her. Let Terry look after his own cash-flow problems, and keep the house free of debt, the way her husband left it to her. She seemed quite relieved, I think. It had been worrying her.’
‘Someone else said that Meredith had seemed worried about something lately. Would that be the reason, do you think?’
‘I don’t know, Kathy. I hadn’t really seen so much of her lately, to speak to. She seemed to keep a bit more to herself.’
‘Did everyone like her really, Sylvia? I mean, after someone dies, everyone says nice things about them, but no one gets through a lifetime without falling out with a few people. Particularly in a close-knit street like this, I should think.’
‘Well, Meredith was a very gregarious sort of person, and couldn’t help herself getting involved in other people’s lives, especially if they were in trouble and needed a helping hand. I suppose sometimes people like that are a bit annoying. I mean, when you’re not in trouble they still like to come round and organize you. I can still remember one day ages ago when Mr Hepple offered to take Meredith and me out to the new shopping centre at Brent Cross for the afternoon. As soon as we drove off she started, “Oh, you’d go this way to Euston Road, would you, Mr Hepple?” and “Turn left here, George” and “I always think the Edgware Road is better than the Finchley Road, but you know best, I suppose”. Mr Hepple didn’t say a word, but when we got home, he said to me, “She’s a wonderful woman in many ways, Sylvia, but that is the first and last time that I will ever have her in my car.” ’
Kathy joined Sylvia’s laughter. ‘Yes, I have an uncle like that.’
‘Top you up, Kathy? Yes, come on, you’re not driving and you’re off duty now. As I said, I don’t mind drinking alone, but it feels bad to drink with someone who isn’t.’
‘All right.’ It had been a long day, and more of a strain doing it with Brock alongside her than she’d realized. ‘Just a small one, though, Sylvia. I have to go out tonight.’