The Marx Sisters (31 page)

At this point Marie paused in her account. She looked rapidly at each of the other people in the room, at Kathy writing in her pad, and her husband staring fixedly at the wall, and finally came to Brock who held her gaze, looking, so it seemed to her, straight into her soul. The hands clasped upon her lap shook. When she began to speak again, it
seemed the words no longer wanted to come, but had to be forced, struggling and shameful, out into the room, where they were frequently interrupted by choking sobs.

She described how she found Meredith asleep on her bed. As she looked down at the still figure it occurred to her that there was only one way to ensure that her husband’s last years would not be haunted by the past. She thought of using a pillow, but then recalled the television advertisements that warned of the dangers of children playing with plastic bags. She went into the kitchen, and put on a pair of pink rubber washing-up gloves beside the sink so that she wouldn’t leave fingerprints. Then she found a plastic bag in a drawer. She returned to the bedroom and slipped it over Meredith’s head without difficulty. Meredith passed away peacefully within a few minutes.

On her way out Marie noticed a plastic carrier bag tucked under the bed, containing books. She looked inside and thought she recognized the old and valuable books which Adam had told her about. On an impulse she took them with her. She didn’t mention the books to Adam or Felix when they returned, but later contacted a dealer through the Yellow Pages and sold them. She couldn’t recall his name.

Throughout all this, Adam had sat without moving. It was as if he had heard nothing, although Kathy thought she could detect tears in his eyes.

Brock made Marie repeat the final part of her story, from when she had left Meredith’s bedroom. She used almost exactly the same words as in her first account.

Brock charged her formally with the murder of Meredith Winterbottom, and told her that they would take her back to London with them, where she would be held. He advised her to contact a solicitor. Inevitably this turned out to be Mr Hepple. She had to be helped out to the telephone in the hall to leave a message with his answering service.

When she returned she said, ‘Felix must look after his father now. You must tell him to come.’

Kathy made the call to Enfield. A tentative female voice answered.

‘Mrs Kowalski? Can I speak to Mr Kowalski, please?’

Felix’s wife was hesitant. ‘Who is this?’

‘I’m Detective Sergeant Kolla from the Metropolitan Police. I need to speak to Mr Kowalski urgently.’

‘Oh.’ More hesitation. ‘He’s away at present. At a conference.’ She spoke uncertainly, as if she found talking on the phone a problem.

‘Well, could you tell me where? Maybe we can contact him.’

‘I’m not sure. It’s at the University of Nottingham . . . What is this about? Has he been involved in an accident or something?’

Kathy took a deep breath. ‘No. It’s his parents, Mrs Kowalski.’

‘Oh no. What’s happened?’ The woman’s voice sounded flat, defeated.

‘His mother is being detained by the police in connection with a serious offence. She wants your husband to look after his father while she is in custody.’

‘Custody?’

‘I’m afraid so. Look, would it be easier if we took Mr Kowalski senior back up to London with us? I’ll give you an address and a phone number, and you can make arrangements with your husband to pick him up later this afternoon, say around 4.’

They drove back in silence, the old couple like statues together in the back. In the event it was their daughter-in-law who was waiting for them when they arrived, and who took charge of the old man. She hadn’t been able to get a message to Felix yet, she explained, as the conference sessions had finished for the day, although they hoped to contact him when he came in for his evening
meal with the other delegates. She had a little boy, about four or five, clutching her hand and she looked drained, as if there were already so many things to cope with that she could hardly bear to find out what this was all about. Brock and Kathy left her talking with Mr Hepple, whose cup was obviously brimming over. Brock had some difficulty being civil in response to the solicitor’s ebullient greeting.

On their return to 20 Jerusalem Lane they found Bren Gurney in almost as good a mood as Mr Hepple. His earlier hunch had been dramatically vindicated, and he felt entitled to some measure of triumph. He himself had had no luck with his own lines of inquiry. The plumber who had worked on Caroline Winter’s kitchen had died of a heart attack just two months before, and no trace of the missing books had been found either, although, as he pointed out to Brock, half the places they visited had been closed for the weekend.

‘Yes,’ Brock nodded resignedly, ‘we’re not going to get anywhere further with that until Monday.’

‘All the same,’ Gurney grinned, ‘this clears the way to charging Winter with Eleanor’s murder.’

Brock shook his head wearily. ‘No Bren, sorry, not yet. You yourself said that his girlfriend will likely as not change her mind about being with him that night. It’s all too circumstantial. Let’s get that damn book dealer first. Find out who he contacted and how much he told them.’

Gurney made as if to argue, then changed his mind and shrugged. ‘All right, chief.’

Brock gave a little nod. ‘See you Monday, Bren.’

Kathy gathered her things together to follow her colleague downstairs.

‘Eleanor’s funeral is tomorrow afternoon,’ she said to Brock. ‘I think I may go.’

Brock seemed not to hear at first. He appeared preoccupied and unsettled. Then he roused himself. ‘I should take a break, Kathy,’ he grunted. ‘You’ve had a solid week of it. Tomorrow’s Sunday. Go out and have some fun for a change.’

Kathy smiled. ‘Easier said than done.’

‘Get that architect to take you out to a show or something.’

‘Bob Jones?’

‘Yes. Much more your type.’

‘Than Martin Connell?’ She looked at him carefully. ‘Don’t worry about that, sir. It doesn’t bother me. Not any more.’

He nodded. ‘I just wouldn’t like to think that we were confusing our targets, between Winter and his solicitor.’

‘I understand. You’re still not sure we’ve got it right, are you?’

‘I’d feel happier if Marie had told us something she couldn’t have got from the newspapers. Like that the plastic bag was found in the bin in the kitchen, not on Meredith’s head.’

‘Yes, but why would she lie? And she did know about the pink washing-up gloves, and the books.’

‘Oh, I don’t doubt she called on Meredith that afternoon. If only she could have told us the name of the book dealer!’

Kathy nodded. ‘What will you do tomorrow?’

‘Oh,’ Brock shrugged, ‘I’m going down to a gliding club on the Downs. A winter picnic, they call it. Must be mad.’

‘Do you fly, then?’

‘Used to glide. Mainly a spectator now, though. They invited me down for tomorrow.’

‘What about Bren? How does he spend his time off?’

‘He’s a family man, Kathy. Young kiddies.’

When she got downstairs, she bumped into Gurney again who was heading for the door.

‘We’re making a mistake,’ he muttered. ‘We should be nailing Winter now while he’s still in a panic. I reckon that bastard Connell’s beginning to make Brock jumpy.’

‘I don’t think so, Bren. Is Connell a bastard, or is he just good at his job?’ Even as the words came out, she wondered why she was saying this. Did she really want to know why Gurney was so riled by him?

‘You’ll find out for yourself, I dare say.’

Now she was getting herself in a mess, letting Gurney think she didn’t know Connell. Yet she couldn’t face the thought of having to explain. She cursed Martin inwardly for involving himself in this of all cases, and said, ‘How about your unlawful entry? Has he made any more of that?’

‘Let him try, Kathy,’ he snorted. ‘Just let him try.’ He waved and pushed the outer door open against the bitter wind.

Spared the necessity of having to go to work, most of London had decided to stay at home rather than risk the icy conditions outside. The route to the suburban crematorium was deserted and Kathy, arriving early, found herself alone in the car park. She chose the same spot where she and Brock had parked the previous September, with its good view of the entrance to the chapel. She had his Polaroid camera, and when people began to arrive, took pictures of them entering the building. But there were so many of them that she soon realized that she wouldn’t have enough film. Moreover, they were all wrapped up heavily in coats and hats and scarves against the cold, and after a while she gave up what seemed like a pointless exercise.

She found Eleanor’s funeral an unsettling experience. The crematorium chapel, with its emasculated, ecumenicized forms of liturgical architecture, its medievalmodernist pews, lectern and stained glass, seemed an incongruous setting for the rendering of the
Internationale
which opened the service. The congregation seemed illtempered, forming knots and factions of elderly men and women who pointedly avoided looking at each other, on ideological grounds perhaps, or for more personal reasons, and who obviously resented being crushed together. In the front pew Terry Winter sat sullenly on one side of Peg, his wife and two daughters, wearing brave expressions, on the other. Mrs Rosenfeldt, who had closed her new enterprise
for the afternoon, was a spectral figure among a pack of mourners at the rear. Only Peg’s preference for the colour red in all its shades lent some warmth and unity to the proceedings—the scarlet drape over the coffin, the two vases of red roses on each side of it and on Peg herself the same bright outfit she had worn to Meredith’s funeral six months before.

An elderly man, stooping like a black stork over his notes, gave a brief tribute to Eleanor’s work for the socialist cause. Peg then took his place at the lectern and thanked all those who had come to pay their last respects to her sister, as well as to those who had written. They would, she said, with an affecting sob, be glad to know that, despite all the changes to the street where they had lived happily for so many years, her sister would find her last resting place there, as she would have wished—indeed on the very spot where their great-grandfather had once lived and their grandfather had been born. The new owners of Jerusalem Lane had kindly arranged that Eleanor’s ashes would, together with a few of her most precious possessions, be placed that very evening in a specially prepared casket and sealed into the foundations of the new building. A plaque in the foyer would record these circumstances.

Kathy was as baffled by this announcement as were obviously the rest of the gathering, through whom a ripple of uncertain applause briefly passed.

For all that, Kathy felt her tear ducts sting as everyone rose at the end and sang
Jerusalem
to wish farewell to the departing casket.

Outside she stood alone for a while, uncertain why she had come. She stamped her feet, her breath forming trails of steam in the still cold air. Already it was almost dark. She thought of Brock and his friends on the North Downs, rugged up in their Range Rovers, no doubt, or red Mercedes sports, drinking hot coffee spliced with whisky,
and his sensible admonition to her to have fun. Easier said than done, she repeated to herself, feeling her spirits sink miserably towards her frozen feet.

Her gloom was interrupted by a hoarsely cheerful Scottish accent.

‘Hello, Sergeant. Was that not grand? There’s nothing like the
Red Flag
and a few verses of
Jerusalem
tae stir the blood. Even if neither of them was written by a Scotsman.’

‘Hello, Mr Finn. I didn’t expect to see you here.’

‘Och aye, lassie. Peg asked me tae come along. Do ye know Mr Jones here?’

‘Yes. Hello, Bob.’

‘Oh, it’s Bob, is it? Did you know that this laddie once accused me of bein’ a member of the middle classes? Can ye credit that?’

‘Shocking.’ Kathy smiled at Bob.

‘Well’—Finn rubbed his hands together and stamped his feet—‘I’ve always maintained that the real point of a funeral is the wee dram at the end, tae restore the spirits of the living, but I think Peg’ll be tied up with her friends, so I suggest we retire tae the pub I saw up the road before we get frozen tae the spot.’

Bob nodded his head vigorously. ‘I knew we could rely on you for a really sensible suggestion, Danny. Kathy?’

‘Why not.’

She returned to her car and was about to start the engine when she heard a tapping at the passenger window. She looked across and her heart lurched to see Martin Connell’s face through the glass. She stared stupidly at him for a moment until he banged impatiently on the door again, and she leaned across and opened it.

‘Could freeze to death out there,’ he complained as he got in quickly and slammed the door. He was wearing a black coat, black leather gloves, gleaming white shirt and an expensive silk tie that Kathy thought just a little flashy for a funeral. He turned to face her, and gave her one of his big,
warm, charming smiles, his eyes travelling speculatively over her features.

‘You’re looking good, Kathy. Really good.’

‘What do you want, Martin?’ She heard her voice unnaturally flat, and resented him for it.
Even
my
voice isn’t
my
own when he’s around
, she thought to herself.

He smiled and didn’t answer straight away, as if he would first read everything that was going through her mind.
Just another bloody lawyer’s trick
.

‘Well, I wanted to see you, speak to you again. It’s been a long time.’

The words weren’t important, it was only necessary to use the voice, so confident, so sonorous, to bring to life the well-remembered style, the warm, easy, habit-forming styles as addictive as a drug, which she had allowed to soak deep into herself through long susceptible hours on the phone, in the dark, in whispers and in parked cars just like this.

‘No, Martin. I don’t want to talk. There’s nothing to say.’

He leaned across to her, uncomfortably close in the intimacy of the car, his left arm stretched out with his black gloved fist on her steering wheel.