Rennie Airth_John Madden 03 Page 8
unable to remember where she had left her things. Watching
her, he’d been put in mind of a wounded bird, one no
longer able to fly, but dragging itself broken-winged along
the ground. Her eyes, rheumed with age, seemed blind to the
world around her. Until the moment of their departure,
that was, when she had paused by a table where a number
of framed photographs stood to direct her gaze at one in
particular, a family group composed of a man and a woman
with three children, two of them small boys and the third an
older girl whom Billy had recognized as Rosa. The picture
had been posed – it looked like a studio photograph, and the
figures had something of the lifelessness of waxwork models
about them. Mrs Laski had picked it up and, after studying it
for a long moment, had pressed the glass front to her lips in
a gesture of farewell.
'Enough. Let us go.’
They were the first words she had spoken to him. And the
last.
He’d escorted her down the stairs with a hand under her
arm and the other ready to catch her in case she fell. Outside,
in the road, Madden had already climbed out of the police
car Billy had brought with him to assist her into the back seat
beside Helen. Their greetings had been acknowledged by a
lowering of her eyelids and a slight dip of her white head, but
beyond taking Helen’s hand in hers and pressing it for a brief moment, she had shown no wish to speak or communicate.
Rather, she had seemed lost in whatever world of pain she
inhabited, and her frailty had been enough to excite Helen’s
concern long before they reached Golders Green.
Finding that the shelter by the gates was furnished with
wooden benches, she had persuaded the old lady to rest there
with her until the arrival of the rabbi who was to conduct
the burial service. The two men had continued on into the
cemetery and waited now beside the main path, but some
way off from the rest of the mourners gathered at the
graveside.
Madden had said little in the interval, and Billy, too, had
remained silent for the most part. But his thoughts had been
occupied by what had occurred a little earlier that morning,
before they had got to Mrs Laski’s flat, when they had
stopped in Little Russell Street at the spot where Rosa Nowak
had met her end.
It was Madden who had requested the detour, and Billy had
been surprised. He’d already given the older man a brief
account of the progress of the investigation carried out by the
Bow Street CID during their drive up from Waterloo station
and Madden had seemed satisfied. At all events he’d asked no
questions.
'They’ve managed to pin down her route up to Bloomsbury,’
he’d told him. 'She came up from Waterloo by tube.
A guard on the Underground at Tottenham Court Road
reckons he saw her go through the ticket barrier there, which
makes sense. From there she would have gone on foot. He
remembers a girl with a basket in one hand and a bag in the
other; that’s what Rosa was carrying. But the crowd was even
thicker than usual, he said, because there’d been an alert just
a few minutes earlier: the sirens had gone off. It turned out
to be a false alarm, but a lot of people came down into the
station from the street, they were milling about, and he only
caught a glimpse of her as she went by.’
Madden had listened in silence, a frown grooving his
brow, reviving Billy’s memories of the brief span of weeks
they had spent working together twenty years before, a
period unmatched in the intensity it had brought to his life
then, and the realization which came later that thanks to the
man into whose company he had been thrown by chance he
had found his own centre of gravity, the place from which
he could embark on his future with confidence. That
Madden himself had chosen another way of life soon after
had never affected Billy’s opinion of him. Even at that early
age he had recognized qualities of character in the older man
that set him apart from his colleagues: qualities that in time
had become touchstones for Billy himself, standards against
which he had come to measure himself.
But he’d made no comment during their journey in the
car, and it was Helen who had taken up the conversation,
pressing Billy for news of his family, chiding him in an
affectionate manner for having been a stranger lately.
The warmth of her greeting and the kiss she had given
him when they had met on the platform at Waterloo had
brought a blush to Billy’s cheeks, just as if he were still the
same green young detective-constable she had first known
years ago.
'But I’m cross with you,’ she had said, her smile belying
her words. 'It’s been so long since you and Elsie brought the
children down to Surrey to see us. And Lucy was saying only
the other day that it’s been nearly a year since she saw you
last. You wouldn’t recognize her in her uniform. She’s grown
up all at once.’
Billy had had to explain that his family had moved out of
London temporarily. Elsie had taken their three children to
stay with her mother in Bedford.
'It’s these blasted doodlebugs,’ he told her. 'They really
put the wind up Elsie, and me too. You never know where
they’re going to land next. We had one come down on a
house by Clapham Common, near where we live, and it
killed the whole family. Folks we knew. The worst of it is
you can hear them coming, the buzz bombs anyway, and you
find yourself wondering whether this is the one that’s got your family’s name on it. Anyway, Elsie and I agreed it
would be better if they stayed out of London, just for the
time being.’
The traffic had been light that morning – petrol rationing
had all but put an end to private motoring – and the radio car
that Billy had brought with him to Waterloo on the chief
inspector’s instructions made rapid time through the bomb
damaged streets. But as they approached their destination – Mrs Laski’s flat was in Montague Street, near the British
Museum – Madden had requested the detour.
'I’d like to have a look at the spot, if you don’t mind.’
Billy himself had not been back to Little Russell Street
since his first visit, and on their arrival there he noticed that
the taped barrier sealing off the rubble-filled yard had been
removed. There’d been no need to tell Madden what it
signified. With nearly a week gone by since the murder had
occurred and no lead having come to light, the chances of a
successful outcome to the inquiry were dwindling rapidly.
Leaving Helen in the car with the driver, they had got out
and, at Madden’s suggestion, walked to the spot near the end
of the street where Rosa had paused to talk to the air-raid
warden.
'She’d come around the corner, t
hen?’ Madden had asked,
and Billy had confirmed it.
'That’s what Cotter said. He’d been standing in this
doorway here, out of the wind.’ Billy indicated the recess.
Madden had walked the last few steps to the corner and
looked down Museum Street, eyes narrowed. 'He might have
waited there,’ he had muttered. 'He would have heard them
talking.’
'Sir . . . ?’ Billy didn’t understand what he was getting at,
but as they walked back towards the car – and towards the
spot where Rosa had been murdered – Madden had revealed
what was troubling him.
“I talked to Mr Sinclair about this, but I’m still not clear in
my mind. Can you remember exactly what the warden said
in his statement? Did Rosa seem uneasy when she spoke to
him that night? She was obviously hurrying, not looking too
carefully where she was going, and I wondered if it was
because she thought someone might be after her.’
'He said she seemed pleased to have run into him,’ Billy
had replied, after a moment’s thought. 'That was in his
statement, I remember. He reckoned she might have been
nervous walking through the blackout alone. But she couldn’t
have been frightened, because when he offered to carry one
of her bags and see her home she said it wouldn’t be necessary,
she was almost there.’
Madden had grunted. 'But she paused all the same for a
minute or two, while they talked?’
'At least that. Why? Is it important?’ Billy had cocked a
curious eye at his old mentor.
“I don’t know . . . but it might be.’ Madden had shrugged.
They had reached the yard and he stood staring down at the
rubble, frowning. Then he’d nodded. 'All right, let’s agree
she wasn’t frightened. She didn’t think she was being stalked.
But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t on edge. It would explain
why the warden said she seemed relieved to have bumped
into him. She may have wanted to reassure herself.’
'Of what?’ Billy didn’t understand. 'You’ve just said she
wasn’t afraid.’
'Afraid, no . . . but uneasy, perhaps.’ Madden gnawed his
lip. 'Look, there’s nothing strange about a young woman
feeling nervous as she walks through the blackout; especially
if she hears, or thinks she hears, footsteps behind her. It
probably means nothing, but she’s still relieved to run into
someone like an air-raid warden, a figure of authority, and
to spend a few minutes chatting to him while she assures
herself that the steps she thought she heard behind her were
only imaginary. Or that whoever it was has taken some other
route and isn’t on her heels any longer. At that point she’d
be happy to go on alone.’
Billy nodded. 'So it wasn’t a case of her thinking some man
was after her. Someone she might have cause to be afraid of.’
'No, I don’t think so. She didn’t feel she was in danger.’
'But this bloke was after her, all the same. He was waiting
round the corner till she moved on. Is that what you’re
saying?’
'It’s possible.’ Madden had nodded slowly. 'After her. Rosa. That’s the point.’ He had looked up at Billy then. “I
know there’s an argument for calling it a chance killing, but
I don’t accept that. It’s already been established the act was
deliberate, and I can’t see it happening in a moment of rage,
or insanity. It was too cold; too clean; too efficient. The killer
knew what he was about.’
The silence that fell between them was broken by the
sound of tapping, and they’d looked round to see Helen at
the car window. She was pointing to her wristwatch.
'But as to why he murdered her.’ Madden shook his head
hopelessly as he turned away. 'That defies all reason.’
The service had ended, but the mourners still clustered
around the rabbi, a young man with a bushy beard, whose
voice as he intoned Kaddish had reached Madden only faintly
where he was standing beside the cart that had carried Rosa
Nowak’s remains down the gravelled path to the graveside.
More clearly heard had been the 'aniens’ which had punctuated
his low, sing-song murmur.
As Madden watched, Helen detached herself from the
group and crossed the path to where he was standing.
“I managed to have a word with Mrs Laski. She won’t
need a lift back to her flat. She’s going to spend the rest of
the day with friends in Hampstead. One of them is a doctor.
He has a car.’
Helen slipped a gloved hand through her husband’s arm.
Although the sleet had stopped falling, a keen wind still blew
across the open expanse of the cemetery and she had covered
her head with a woollen scarf, tucking the ends into her coat,
which was buttoned to the neck.
'I think we can slip away now. I’d like to stop off at St
John’s Wood for an hour before we go back. I must see how
Aunt Maud’s getting on. I’m sure Billy won’t mind dropping
us off. Where is he, by the way?’
The two men had been standing together, a little apart
from the others.
'He’s gone back to the car.’ Madden nodded towards the
gates. 'His driver said they were trying to get hold of him on
the radio. Some message from the Yard.’
He watched for a moment as the group at the graveside
began to break up. Two men armed with shovels moved
forward to begin the task of filling in the grave.
'Do I need to say anything to Mrs Laski?’ he asked.
'No, I don’t think so. I told her we’d be in touch with her
again soon. Let’s leave it at that for now.’
They started up the long path towards the gates, soon
overtaking the more elderly mourners ahead of them, and as
they approached the exit to the cemetery they saw Billy
appear. He was walking rapidly, and when he saw them he
waved.
'Sir . . .’ he called out to them as he came nearer.
'What is it?’ Madden raised his voice in reply.
'A message from Bow Street. . .’ Breathing hard, Billy
came up to them. Madden halted, with Helen on his arm.
'They’ve got a lead, sir.’
'A lead?’ Madden’s voice was calm. But beside him, Helen
felt his arm grow tense.
“I don’t have the details. The message came through the
radio room at Central. But Bow Street have found a witness.
A good one, too. She’s at the station now.’ Billy was still
panting.
'Then you’ll want to get down there right away.’ Madden’s
response was prompt. 'Don’t worry about us. We’re
going to stop off at St John’s Wood. We’ll find our own way
there.’
'No, it’s not that, sir. I can drop Dr Madden off if she
likes. It’s on the way. But I thought. . .’ Billy paused. 'Well,
you might like to come with me.’
'To Bow Street?’ Madden’s surprise was plain.
'That’s right, sir.’ A grin had appeared on the younger
man’s face.
'But wh
y . . . ?’ Madden glanced at Helen beside him.
'Because it seems only fair.’ Billy’s smile had broadened.
'After what you were saying only an hour ago.’
'What / was saying?’
'That it was odds on the man who killed Rosa was
following her.’
'Yes . . . ? And. . . ?’ Madden’s gaze was piercing now.
Billy gave a shrug.
'Well, it seems you were right.’
Lofty Cook shook his head ruefully.
'This is a real stroke of luck, I can tell you.’
His remark was addressed to Billy, but he spared a glance
for Madden, who was beside him.
'It came out of the blue, too. The first I knew of it was a
call from Poole. She rang the station to say she was bringing
Florrie in. That’s when I phoned the Yard, looking for you.’
'Poole?’ Billy asked.
'That WPC I told you about.’
'The one who responded to the warden’s whistle? The
first officer at the scene?’ Billy nodded. “I remember now.’
They were standing in the corridor outside the interview
room at the Bow Street police station. Alerted by the desk
sergeant, Cook had come out to meet them, shutting the door
behind him. If he’d been surprised to see Madden there
he gave no sign of it. “I heard you were coming up for the
funeral, sir,’ he’d said, as they shook hands. 'It’s a pleasure to
meet you.’
He’d told them then who the witness was he’d been
questioning.
'Florence Desmoulins is the name on her papers, but we
know her as French Florrie and we’ve had her on our books
since 'thirty-eight. She’s got a pitch in Soho Square, but the
night of Rosa’s murder she was in Tottenham Court Road
tube station taking shelter after the sirens went off and that’s
where she saw her. Saw Rosa.’
He explained how the streetwalker had come to their
notice.
'When we started showing Rosa’s photograph around,
Poole made a point of checking with the tarts. It was her
idea. She reckons they’re more observant than most.’
'Yes, but why has it taken so long to find this Florrie?’
Billy asked. He and Lofty had lit cigarettes and were dropping
their ash on the bare wooden floor. 'The murder was a
week ago.’
'She was off sick for a few days. With a head cold, she
says. Poole spotted her this morning shopping in Oxford
Street and showed her Rosa’s photo. Florrie said it was the