The Frightened Man (23 page)

‘For what?’

‘Trespassing. Destroying evidence, if somebody like Guillam got hold of it. And if you come up on a charge, you can kiss living in England goodbye! If Guillam doesn’t see to it, I bloody well will!’

‘Hasn’t Guillam got it by now?’

‘I went direct to N Division and got a not very bright detective named Evans up to Mulcahy’s place with a couple of constables, and so far it’s an N Division matter. I told Evans we had an informer who said there was a body - now, that won’t last past Evans’s first report, and it won’t make it to the coroner, because N Division aren’t simpletons - but it’ll do for tonight and maybe tomorrow morning. By that time, if you’re lucky, Evans will have his jaws tight around the case and he won’t give it up to Guillam or the devil himself. Guillam’ll hear about it like everybody else in a day or two, and that’ll be that.’

‘Thanks.’

‘There’ll be nothing to thank me for unless you tell the truth. Tell me and then tell Evans.’

‘What’s the truth?’

‘Goddamnit, Denton, don’t try that! Your buttock’s in the crack in the privy seat, and I’m not entirely out of it myself, thanks to you. Look - I didn’t tell Evans that a gentleman author sent me a note about this body he found, but if I had, you’d be at N Division right now explaining all the hows and whys and wherefores.’ Munro took a gulp of beer. ‘I’m giving you a chance to tell them to me first.’

‘Concoct a tale?’

‘I’d punch another man for saying that to me. I don’t concoct tales and I don’t help other people concoct them. No, I want the truth. And the truth is what’ll go into the case file.’ He heaved his bulk up and stood facing Denton. ‘You and I’ve been square with each other, haven’t we? We seemed to hit it off.’ He was embarrassed by this revelation. ‘Don’t make things worse - get it?’

‘I looked through a crack in a wooden fence that runs alongside that tall brick building. I saw a body.’

‘You can’t see the body through the fence. I tried.’

‘I’m taller than you are.’

‘Don’t do this, Denton!’

Denton sipped the brandy and, finding it too much, set it down. ‘What is it you think I did?’

‘You broke the lock on a trapdoor to the roof and climbed down to Mulcahy’s window and saw him and then went into his room.’

‘I broke no lock.’

‘Denton, two people will testify they saw you in the building. I can put you there, man.’

‘I was in the building - of course I was. And, yes, I found the stairs to the roof. But the padlock on the trap was already broken. I didn’t break it.’ He crossed the few feet to the window.

‘And you went out on the roof!’

Denton, his back still to the policeman, was fingering a green cord that held back the velvet curtain. The cord was twisted like a rope, the surface shiny, but as his fingernail ran over it, individual fibres separated: the green silk was a kind of sheath that surrounded a stronger, more prosaic fibre. ‘Did your Evans go over the roof ?’ he said to Munro.

‘He broke the locks. He’d sent a constable over that gate - it didn’t take a bloody genius to see he’d come out of that open window.’

‘Then you don’t need anything from me.’ Denton was holding a shiny green fibre up to the gaslight and studying it. ‘I didn’t push the dead man out the window, and I didn’t destroy any evidence anywhere, so I don’t see what you’re on about.’ He turned to face Munro. ‘Was it Mulcahy?’

‘Of course it was.’

‘And was it suicide?’

Munro gave him a shrewd look, then shook his head, perhaps in disgust, perhaps in disbelief. ‘Evans likes the suicide idea. So does Willey; Evans called him in as soon as I told him about the dead woman in the Minories. If there’s no other evidence, Evans will go for a coroner’s verdict of suicide while temporarily insane.’ He stared up at Denton. ‘Is there any other evidence I should know about?’

Denton dropped the green cord. ‘Munro, I swear -
if
I was even in that room, I touched nothing and removed nothing.
I have no evidence
.’

‘The coroner will sit on this on Saturday. You’ll be called, and you’ll by God testify. Under oath!’

‘Fair enough.’ It was Tuesday. ‘You’ll get your truth. Under oath.’

Munro shook his head again. ‘You’ve got something; I know you’ve got something; and you won’t tell me because you think it’ll get to Georgie. Well, I’ll admit he’s behaved like a right ass, but that doesn’t justify you withholding
anything
, Denton - all right, you don’t have evidence! - any idea, any suspicion!’

‘Do you believe Mulcahy killed himself?’

‘Do you?’

Denton took two steps to the bookcase and back. ‘Will Guillam?’

‘Georgie’ll be pleased as peaches and cream. Another crime that isn’t the Ripper.’

‘Mulcahy confessed in a suicide note?’ He knew perfectly well what the note in the Inventorium said, but he wanted to see what Munro would say. Munro screwed his mouth up, looked up at Denton through shaggy brows and shook his head.

‘You’re damned devious,’ Munro said. He drank some of the beer. In other words, just in case Denton actually hadn’t been inside the Inventorium and seen the note, he wasn’t saying anything, either.

Denton pulled the hassock closer to the green armchair in which Munro was sitting and lowered himself to it, putting himself in an apparently subservient, almost pleading position at Munro’s knees. ‘If Mulcahy murdered the girl and killed himself, who broke in here and tried to kill me?’

‘Georgie will say it was a burglar and that’s that.’

‘What do you say?’

Munro eyed him, held up his glass to the light as if to look for lees, and said, ‘I think that’s a damned violent burglar. Even for London.’

‘So you don’t believe Mulcahy killed her.’

‘I don’t say that. Mulcahy’s mind was unhinged - you said as much the night he came here.’

‘With terror, not murder.’

‘Your impression. Look, Denton—’ Munro bent forward with the glass between his hands; the two men’s heads were almost together and his voice fell very low. ‘I know what you’re thinking - it serves Willey’s and Guillam’s and even Evans’s purposes to have Mulcahy the murderer. But that’s not my way. I’m in this because you pulled me in. Now, look here - I’ll keep your counsel until the inquest if you’ll tell me what you have. Because by God, man, I know you have something.’

It was a kind of declaration of friendship, as real as if they had touched. Denton felt a lurch of memory, thought of his response to Janet Striker’s story of her life: a desire to answer like with like. To accept what had been offered. When he spoke, his voice was even lower than Munro’s, a conspiratorial rumble. ‘I’ve nothing but an idea, and you already know that. That Mulcahy didn’t kill her, and somebody else did,’ he said. ‘But no evidence.’

Munro was staring into his eyes. They were close enough to have kissed. His voice fell to match Denton’s, almost a whisper. ‘Why do you want to hold off until Saturday, then?’

‘I was with a couple of young tarts who knew Stella Minter today. They told me a few things.’ The man’s eyes stared into his. Denton murmured, ‘She’d been at a place called the Humphrey - unwed mothers. I’m trying to get in there to ask about her. Her real name was Ruth. She had a sister, younger. She seemed “educated”. That’s it - that’s all of it.’ He looked down at his own glass, swirled it, met Munro’s eyes again. ‘Give me until Saturday. And don’t tell me to give the information to Willey or Guillam. They’ll pitch it in a wire basket.’ He put a finger on Munro’s coat sleeve. ‘You want to do something, look for evidence that Mulcahy was tortured.’

‘
What?
You’re daft. What, tortured to sign a suicide note? Not a chance.’

‘Had he pissed himself? Was there shit in his trousers?’

‘After falling four storeys, what do you think?’

‘I think a man who was tortured would have soiled himself.’

‘You’re weaving stories, Denton.’

‘You asked me what I think.’ He waited. ‘There going to be a post-mortem?’

‘Evans won’t ask for anything fancy. The man fell four storeys and he’d been down there a couple of days, at least.’ Munro looked shrewd, one eybrow raised. ‘What kind of torture?’

‘Something that wouldn’t show up easily after a four-storey fall.’

Their heads remained together, their breath mingling, the mixed smell of brandy and beer thick between them. After several seconds, Munro grunted, leaned back, drained his glass and put it down with a knock against the table. He threw himself back in the armchair. ‘Torture! That would put the cat among the pigeons.’ He sniffed, pressed on his eyes with thumb and fingers. ‘I’m not even sure there’ll be a post-mortem. Some local doc, if there is. Evans won’t want to stir things up.’ He stuck a fist under his chin. ‘Your “burglar” breaks into Mulcahy’s place, waits for him, then tortures him. Just to sign a suicide note?’

‘To find out where he’s been and who he’s talked to.’

‘Which is how he gets to you. Then - what? He tortures Mulcahy until he signs the suicide note and then throws him out of the window? Is that your tale?’

‘Something like that.’

‘What does he think Mulcahy told you?’

‘I wish I knew. Not that wild tale about them being kids together.’

‘Where is he now, your torturer?’

‘Gone to ground.’

Munro tapped his fist against his chin and stared at the ceiling and abruptly burst into laughter. ‘They’ll say it’s one of your novels, Denton!’

Denton shrugged. ‘It’s what I think, anyway.’

Munro struggled out of his chair and put a hand on Denton’s shoulder. ‘I’ll try to put a bee in Evans’s bonnet about a careful PM. I can’t float an idea of torture past him; he’d see that as interfering and he’d go into his shell. Evans is a plodder, workmanlike but sensitive as Bunthorne’s bride. That’s the best I can do. Maybe drop a hint if he’s in a good mood. As for where the girl had her baby and her name and all—’ He shook his head. ‘Willey’s got access to the same tarts you have; let him find out for himself. How’d you connect up with them, anyway?’

‘A woman I know.’

Munro stared at him, tossed his head, pulled down his waistcoat as if straightening himself before leaving. Denton, still seated on the hassock, said, ‘What do you think “educated” means to the girls who knew Stella Minter?’

‘Not at the Varsity, I expect.’ He was looking around. ‘What the hell has your man done with my things?’

‘Look in the alcove - up at the other end—’ As Munro stamped off, Denton raised his voice to say, ‘More schooling? Could she have got more schooling? Some sort of public school for girls?’

Munro’s voice was muffled, and he came back down the room with his hat crooked on his head and a huge, hairy overcoat balled in his arm. ‘Public school and she got herself in a fix and went to a home for unwed mamas? I doubt it. More likely—’ He was struggling into the coat; Denton got up and tried to sort out the collar and a sleeve while Munro seemed to be trying to take them away from him. ‘More likely - what the hell - more likely, she—You know, I might better do this myself. Just - there - well—’ Munro shrugged himself into the huge coat. ‘More likely she might have stayed on at school for a term or two. Mandatory they stay to age eleven - I know; I’ve got kids. But they can stay on as long as fourteen, depending on the school and how they do. That’d be “educated”, I suppose, to one of the eleven-leavers. Especially if she came from a decent home, learned to speak more or less properly. This is England, Denton; you are how you sound.’ He was buttoning the coat. ‘Up to a point.’

‘Who would know about girls who stay on at school?’

‘You don’t give up, do you? Metropolitan Schools Board, I suppose. But it’d be a needle in a haystack.’

‘Like R. Mulcahy in the London directories. Metropolitan Schools Board another monument to red tape?’

‘One of our finest.’

‘How about helping me with a letter to cut through it?’

Munro thought about that, then tapped Denton’s shoulder with his bowler. ‘Your friend Hench-Rose is the man for that. He doesn’t have to worry about a pension.’ He started for the door, said, ‘You heard he’s come into money?’

‘He told me.’

‘Lucky sod. Except it isn’t luck, is it? They leave it to each other - keep it in their hands and out of ours.’ He jammed his hat on his big head and opened the door. ‘You didn’t hear me say that. Good night, Denton.’

Thirty seconds after the front door had closed, Atkins came up from seeing Munro out. Rupert, drooling and grinning, swayed along behind.

‘Heard everything, did you?’ Denton said.

‘Enough.’

‘You know what’s going on, then.’

‘I know you’re in it up to your oxters again, is what I know! “I wash my hands of it,” my hat!’ Atkins picked up the beer bottle and glass. ‘If you’re keeping on with the late Mulcahy, I’m off to the agencies in the morning to list myself for a new place.’

‘Oh, now—’

‘I don’t mind the odd rough-up as a condition of working for you, General, but I can’t have my employer’s bills going unpaid. I know it’s fashionable, but I ain’t the glass of fashion.’

‘You’ve always been paid.’

‘And mean to continue to be. It’s me for the agents.’

Denton knew that if he had been an English gentleman he’d have given Atkins a tongue-lashing and sent him packing, but he felt a probably North American, certainly democratic, guilt towards Atkins. Or maybe it was simply the guilt of a man born to a dirt-poor Maine farmer. At any rate, to scold Atkins would be failure, as if he had abandoned some ideal of equality.

‘Sergeant, not so fast! I’m meeting with my editor tomorrow. I mean to ask him for the money in my current account - the publishers always have money they’re holding back. You know my business well enough for that; they pay up every six months, and it accumulates between times. They’ll give it to me.’

‘Enough?’

‘There should be an American payment, royalties on the last book - there’s others on the backlist—’

Atkins made a mock curtsey. ‘I leap at the opportunity to remain with you, then. I’ll wait to visit the agents until - Friday, how’s that?’

‘The day before Mulcahy’s inquest.’

‘Mulcahy! I wish I’d thrown him down the front steps and slammed the bleeding door!’