The Best of British Crime omnibus (69 page)

‘Have you ever met a friend of hers called Judy Black?'

‘No, never,' Heaton said hastily. ‘But then I wouldn't. I don't know any of her friends. I've just told you. She's not really a friend …'

‘But you had dinner with her last night,' Harry persisted mercilessly.

‘Yes. We did last night but …' Heaton launched into a complicated series of excuses. Harry listened with patience and then interrupted quietly.

‘Where does she live?'

Heaton stopped dead. ‘Where – does she live?'

‘Yes.'

‘She has a flat in Defoe Mansions.'

‘Where's that?'

‘It's on the Carrington Road.'

‘Have you been there?'

‘No, never.' Heaton tried to meet Harry's steady stare but his eyelids flickered and he turned his face away. ‘Well – once.'

‘Only once, Mr. Heaton?'

‘Well – er – twice, as a matter of fact.'

‘What number Defoe Mansions?'

‘Thirty-two, I think it is.'

If Heaton had confessed to the murder of Mrs. Rogers he could not have looked more guilty or ashamed of himself. He had picked up a dog biscuit which lay on the table and was crumbling it in his fingers.

‘Thank you, Mr. Heaton,' Harry said. He pushed through the curtain and walked the length of the shop. When he opened the door a bell pinged in the little room where Sidney Heaton still stood, his eyes cast down to the ground.

Defoe Mansions was a humbler building than its high-sounding name suggested. Originally three nineteenth-century houses, the interior had been ruthlessly hacked about to provide a number of flats, which the sales brochure had described as ‘ultra-modern' and ‘luxury'. The entrance was in the central house and from the front hall a lift gave access to the upper floors.

Marty Smith emerged from the lift and paused in the hallway to light a small cigar. He was wearing a new check sports jacket and there was a self-satisfied expression on his pock-marked features. The tick which contorted the right side of his face when he was under stress was quiescent at the moment.

He flipped the match on to the polished lino floor and sauntered out into the sunlight of the morning. Across the street and a hundred yards up the road was a boozer which he often used. He reckoned he'd earned himself a pint.

He had crossed the street and was heading towards the Rose and Crown when his suspicious eyes spotted a car slowing down opposite Defoe Mansions. He moved into a shop doorway to watch. The green Austin 1100 found a parking space and as the driver turned to reverse into it, Marty recognised the face. An involuntary flicker jerked his right cheek.

He waited till Harry Dawson had entered the building, then crossed the road slowly at a point where he was not visible from the hallway. By the time he entered the hall the lift was on its way up. Marty watched the numbers on the indicator glow as the lift passed the second floor and stopped at the third. Just to make sure, he pressed the call button and the lift began to come down. No doubt about it, Dawson had got out on the floor where Linda lived.

Three minutes later Marty was in the public telephone booth at the Rose and Crown. He dialled a number which he knew by heart. While it rang he twisted round to make sure that no one was near enough to hear what he said through the walls of the booth. The voice answered almost before he was ready for it.

‘Tam? This is Marty … Listen, I'm outside Linda's place, I've just delivered the passport … No, no, she's okay. But listen to this! I've just seen Harry Dawson … No, two minutes ago … Yes, he's just gone into her apartment.'

Marty took out a grubby handkerchief to wipe his brow. Talking to Tam always made him nervous.

‘Well, I hope she does play it cool … What? This is a hell of a line … Yes, you do that, you phone her, that's a very good idea. Okay, Tam.'

Relieved that he had shed the responsibility, Marty hung up the receiver. He was stroking the right side of his face as he came out of the booth.

Harry had needed to ring several times at the door of flat number 32 before he heard an impatient voice calling: ‘All right, all right, I'm coming.' The door was opened by the woman he had seen twice before. She was wearing a fur coat and her handbag dangled from her forearm.

‘For Gawd's sake …!' she began to remonstrate. She stopped dead when she saw who was standing there.

‘Good morning, Miss Wade,' Harry said, putting on his most friendly smile. ‘You remember me, perhaps? I'm Detective Inspector Dawson. We met in the Golden Plough last night. Could you spare me a few minutes?'

Behind her calculating eyes Linda Wade's mind was working fast. ‘Well, it's a bit awkward at the moment. I was just going out. I've got an appointment at the hairdresser's at half-past eleven.'

Harry kept the smile going. ‘It'll only take a few minutes.'

‘Well—'

‘You look to me more as if you'd just come
back
from the hairdresser's.'

Linda patted her suspiciously lustrous red hair. Even in these circumstances she could not help being flattered by the compliment.

‘Nonsense! It's in a frightful mess.'

‘May I come in?' Harry moved forward, following up his advantage. ‘Just for a moment.'

‘Yes, okay. But I warn you it will only have to be for a few moments.'

The flat was over-heated. Harry felt the warmth hit his face as soon as he entered the hall. The interior was a surprise, totally at variance with the external appearance of Defoe Mansions. The immediate impression was that the owner had walked into one of those antique shops which specialise in gilt mirrors and highly ornamental
objets d'art
and just bought the lot.

‘What a beautiful flat!' Harry said, as Linda closed the door behind him.

‘Do you like it?'

‘I do. I do indeed.' Harry was looking around him as he walked towards what was obviously the sitting-room. He was noting the position of doors, searching for any object which might have been carelessly left lying around.

The sitting-room had one of the large bay windows which had been a feature of the original house, and the ceiling was high. A pair of double doors, at the moment ajar, led through into the bedroom.

No money had been spared on this room. A purple carpet stretched from wall to wall. A wide divan jutted from one side of the room, adorned with a tiger-skin rug and a scatter of gaudy cushions. The arm-chairs were deep and welcoming, the desk secretaire had obviously cost a bomb and there were large mirrors on every wall. The dominant feature was a large, very modern cocktail cabinet.

Yet the whole effect was impersonal. There was nothing here to awaken guilty memories of home in the male visitor's mind. It was an ornate kind of reception room.

‘I'm sorry I can't offer you a drink, there really isn't time,' Linda said. She had not invited him to sit down.

‘Miss Wade, I'll tell you why I wanted to see you—'

‘I think I know why, duckie,' Linda cut in. ‘About Judy Black?'

‘Yes.' Harry did not show his surprise at her coming to the point so quickly.

‘I nearly phoned you last night, after I'd seen you in the Plough, and then I thought – you keep out of this, Linda. Don't get mixed up in anything. You've always been a good little girl – with reservations, of course – you keep it that way, sweetie.'

There was something rather engaging about her frank way of talking.

‘But you do know Judy?'

‘Yes, of course I know her. Don't know her very well but—' She paused, then looked him in the eye. ‘She stayed the night with me, the night Newton died.'

‘Where is she now?'

‘I don't know, duckie. And that's the truth. Honestly, I don't know.'

There was a faint tang of cigarette smoke in the air and half a dozen cork-tipped cigarette ends had been crushed in the Venetian glass ash-tray; some of them had been only half smoked.

Harry took out his case and offered it to Linda.

‘I don't smoke, thanks. But you go ahead.'

Harry lit up and then turned to her appealingly. ‘Look. I'm going to be frank with you. I'm in a spot. I've got to find Judy and I've got to find her before—'

‘Sweetie, I've just told you, I don't know where she is. I haven't a clue. I haven't seen her since she did a bunk that night.'

‘Is that the truth?'

Linda drew her scarlet-tipped finger across a well-defined bosom. ‘Cross my heart—'

Harry allowed his eyes to be drawn to the cleavage between her breasts. He smiled wryly in acceptance of her statement and gave her arm a squeeze.

‘Okay … Okay, I believe you.'

Confident now that like all men he had become more interested in her physical attributes than anything else, Linda reacted to the squeeze with a little squirm of sensuous pleasure.

‘In any case, you're barking up the wrong tree. She didn't kill Newton. He was her meal ticket, so why should she kill him?'

‘They had a row that night.'

‘So what?' Linda laughed. ‘I'm always having rows but I haven't knocked anybody off. Not yet.'

‘Did you know Newton?'

‘Yes. I knew him.' Linda turned the corners of her mouth down. ‘Didn't like him very much. Altogether too much of a smoothie for my liking. Always used to think he was a queer, as a matter of fact, but turned out he wasn't.'

‘Well, I'm sorry you can't help me.' He nodded towards the bar. ‘Sorry about the drink too. Some other time, perhaps?'

‘Why not? We're always open!'

‘Open to offers?' Harry suggested.

‘I meant the bar.' Linda pretended to be mildly shocked, then put on the come-hither expression she had been wearing when she took Sidney Heaton out of the Golden Plough. ‘But we're open to offers too, sweetie.'

Harry echoed her laugh and bent to stub his cigarette out in the ash-tray. He moved out into the hallway.

‘I'll drop in again, if I may. One evening, perhaps?
After
you've been to the hairdresser's.'

‘You do that. But give me a ring first. And I'm sorry I could not be more helpful – about Judy, I mean. But you're wasting your time, duckie, you really are. She didn't kill Newton.'

Harry stopped and turned round. In the sitting-room the telephone had started to ring.

‘Then who did?'

‘I don't know, but it certainly wasn't Judy. Listen, I must answer that phone.'

‘All right. I can let myself out.'

‘See you.'

Linda started towards the living-room. Harry put his hand up to twist the knob of the Yale lock and as he did so he slipped up the button which would put it on the latch. Turning at the door of the living-room, Linda was able to see the door of the flat close on him.

Outside on the landing Harry stood for a moment, holding the door to by the handle of the knocker. He could faintly hear Linda's voice and knew that she was now at the telephone, but he could not hear what she said.

He pushed the front door open, re-entered the hall, quietly released the latch and closed the door. He could now quite clearly hear what she was saying.

‘He's just left … Yes, I did … It would have looked a hell of a lot fishier if I hadn't asked him in … No, I played it cool … What? … Well, she's all right, but a bit nervous … Yes, I think it's very good, the photograph's excellent … No, he didn't. I'm picking the ticket up myself … Tam, listen …' Linda's voice became pleading. ‘Do you always have to send Marty? Couldn't it be someone else, just for once? … Do I like him? He's a flaming monster!'

Harry sensed that the conversation was coming to an end. He cautiously opened one of the doors leading off the hall. It was a bathroom. He slipped inside and pushed the door till it touched the jamb but did not click shut.

Linda had finished her telephone call. He could hear her footsteps on the floor of the hall outside. She seemed to be fussed about something. Harry guessed that she was searching for her handbag or her purse. Once she came right up to the door of the bathroom and he could hear her muttering to herself.

Then she changed her mind and his heart-beats slowed down again. A few seconds later he heard the front door close.

He gave her half a minute, then pulled his door open and slipped out into the hallway. Beyond the door of the flat the lift doors clattered.

Although he was now the only person in the flat some instinct made him move cautiously and silently. He stood for a moment in the centre of the living-room letting his eyes roam methodically around. ‘Give your eyes a chance,' was a well-known police adage.

The Venetian ash-tray was the first item to receive his closer scrutiny. He picked up one of the tipped cigarettes he had noticed. It was a Piccadilly, the brand which Judy Black had been smoking that night in St. James's Park.

Next he moved to the desk. He quickly opened and shut a number of drawers, rifling rapidly through their contents. In the fourth drawer he found what he was looking for, a British passport. He took it to the window.

The number was N 35645, which indicated that it had probably been issued about five years ago. The name in the panel at the top was Miss Stella Morgan. He turned to the third page where a photograph had been pasted into the square marked ‘bearer'. The face was familiar, yet strange. The features were those of Judy Black, but the hair was dark and arranged in a completely different, rather severe style. She was wearing heavy horn-rimmed glasses.

‘Judy.'

Staring at that face whose attractive innocence shone even through the harsh passport photograph, he realised that he had involuntarily spoken her name aloud.

He was examining the page headed ‘Description/Signalement' when he thought he heard a faint noise from the adjoining bedroom. It had sounded like somebody stealthily opening a sash window.