The Reckoning (29 page)

‘And what about this bloke with the hard eyes? Where does he fit in? Is he the shooter we're looking for? Are the two of them in this together?'

He turned to see what effect, if any, his words had had on his companion. They were sitting in the back of the police car making their slow way back to London through the still foggy morning. Madden had been staring out of the window for some time, silent.

‘Or could Alma be tied up with this in some way we haven't thought of yet?' Billy gnawed at his lip. ‘Perhaps she knew what these two were going to do. Maybe that's why she took herself off to Canada. Because she didn't want to get mixed up in it. Was that what the scene Miss Dauncey overheard was all about? What do you think?'

Knowing his old chief's tendency to get lost in his thoughts,
Billy had kept his impatience in check for as long as he could. But finally he had to speak.

‘Have you got an opinion, sir? You haven't said a word.'

His exasperated tone brought a smile to Madden's lips.

‘I'm sorry, Billy . . .' He turned from the window. ‘I was wool-gathering. No, I don't believe she went to Canada for that reason. It wasn't done on the spur of the moment. She was making plans to emigrate well before her mother fell ill – and before this man turned up. But as for the rest, I'm as confused as you are. Miss Dauncey assumed there'd been an affair between Alma and Finch. But would that have been enough to bring about the scene she witnessed?'

‘Enough?'

It seemed to Billy his old chief had gone off on a tangent.

‘What's the worst that could have happened to her – assuming Miss Dauncey is right in her diagnosis? Perhaps they had an affair and she got pregnant. Or he might have told her he was going to leave his wife and then gone back on his word. But would either have been enough to justify the fury Alma seemed to feel . . . the sense of betrayal? That was how I understood that encounter of theirs – at least as Miss Dauncey described it. Alma seemed to think she'd been let down.'

‘Perhaps he didn't stand by her,' Billy suggested.

‘If that was the case I wouldn't defend him. But could she really have expected their relationship to last? She was bound to find out in the end that he was married. I think there was more to it than that. I'm starting to wonder if there wasn't some other link between them.'

‘Like what, sir?'

Madden shook his head.

‘There's no point in guessing,' he said. ‘We have to find out. It may be important: it could explain a lot of things. Since Alma's not available, we have to talk to this man Finch.'

‘So you do think he is involved in some way?' At last they were getting somewhere, Billy thought.

‘Involved . . . in these murders?' Madden frowned.

‘He
could
be our shooter. Miss Dauncey seemed to think he was capable of anything.'

‘So she did.'

Madden rubbed the scar on his brow. His frown had become a scowl.

‘Look, I don't know where this is headed, Billy. I'm as much in the dark as you are. I'm trying to feel my way, but that meeting on the terrace that Miss Dauncey witnessed was too extraordinary – too
extreme
, to use her word – to ignore. We must get to the bottom of it. You
must
locate this man.'

‘Oh, I agree.' Billy shrugged. ‘And he shouldn't be too hard to find. Miss Dauncey thought he might be a painter. But then what? We can hardly go and ask him about some affair he might or might not have had with a young woman; and him a married man. Charlie wouldn't like it, that's for certain; Cradock would go spare. We'll have to find some evidence first that ties him to this case.'

‘No, there's no time for that. The delay could be fatal.'

The sharpness of Madden's tone took Billy by surprise. For a moment he hesitated . . . but only for a moment.

‘In that case I'll get on to it right away,' he said, smiling to himself as he said it. He realized he'd accepted the order without question, just as if he was still a green DC and Madden his superior. But habits were hard to break, he reminded himself. And it wasn't as though he'd ever had cause to doubt his former chief's judgement. ‘Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind finding out a bit more about Mr Colin Finch.' He went on. ‘For one thing, I'd like to know how he and Alma met – and where.'

Madden's nod concurred.

‘Yes . . . and why she called him Antoine.'

_______

‘His name's Mickey Corder. No reason you should have heard of him. He's a small-time dealer, pond scum, one of the lower forms of life.'

Joe Grace's hatchet face was split by a smile.

‘They know him well, down Wapping way. He hasn't got a business as such; he's more of a middleman. He'll get you what you need – a false ID card, or some dodgy petrol coupons – but he doesn't hold the stuff himself. He buys it off others and adds his commission to the price. That way he keeps his hands clean, or thinks he does. But this time he made a mistake.'

‘Who gave you the tip?' Billy asked. He'd returned from Richmond a few minutes earlier to find Joe ensconced with the chief super in his office and both of them impatiently awaiting his arrival.

‘Stan Barrow – remember him?'

‘How could I forget? He was part of that old smash-andgrab gang we broke up before the war. You and I nicked him in '39. He used to be one of our snouts.'

‘He still is, when the mood moves him.' Joe grinned. ‘And he's still working as a cellar-man at the White Boar.'

‘That den of thieves?' Billy chuckled. ‘It's got a charmed life. The Jerries blew everything to buggery along the river down there during the war, yet somehow they managed to miss it. It made me wonder if there really was a God.'

He caught Chubb's eye. The chief super's brow was darkening.

‘So what did Barrow have to say?'

‘He rang me at home over the weekend, said he'd heard about the word I'd put out. He remembered Corder doing some kind of business deal with a woman weeks ago. She came to the Boar one evening and they met in a back room. He only got a quick look at her and he doesn't know what changed hands. But
since Mickey trafficks in forged or stolen cards, I thought it worth my while having a word with him. I picked him up at his lodgings in Whitechapel this morning and took him over to Wapping nick. He didn't want to say anything at first, but soon changed his mind.'

‘Broke one of his fingers, did you?' Chubb glared.

‘No, of course not, sir. I wouldn't do a thing like that.' Joe was offended. ‘I just told him that unless he came clean, we'd be charging him as an accessory to murder. That got his attention.'

‘I should hope so too.' Charlie's face brightened.

‘Mickey told me he'd sold the woman two ID cards.'

‘Horton and Oakes.' Billy scowled. ‘How did she come to find him?'

‘Mickey didn't know for sure. He's got a stall at one of those open-air markets. That's his front. She just turned up one day and told him what she wanted. Said she'd heard he could supply the goods. He fixed for them to meet next day at the Boar.'

‘Did he give you a description of her?'

Grace nodded. ‘It's a lot like the others we've got: dark-haired, ordinary-looking, no identifying marks. I showed him the sketches. He said the one with glasses could have been her.'

‘Sounds like our lady. What do you reckon, sir?'

Billy turned to Chubb for his opinion and got a growl instead for his pains. The chief super seemed out of sorts today.

‘I take it your visit to Richmond hasn't added to the sum of human knowledge, or you would have said so by now.' He glowered.

‘Not at all, sir.' It was Billy's turn to look offended. ‘In fact, I've got a story to tell you – one you may find hard to believe. It's about Alma Ballard and her father and some other bloke, and there's a good chance it connects to the case, though I can't tell you how just yet. Do you want to hear it?'

Chubb glanced at his watch.

‘Not now. I have to see Cradock. Come back in an hour.'

_______

‘I heard on the wireless this morning this fog's here to stay for a while.'

Chubb stood by the window in his office peering out. The mist of morning still covered the city like a grey blanket. The air was still.

‘A real pea-souper – that's what we're in for.'

The chief super spoke with gloomy relish. He turned to face Billy.

‘So who is this Finch bloke? Do we really need to find him?'

‘Mr Madden thinks so, and I reckon he's right.'

Billy smothered a yawn. Chubb had returned in even bleaker mood from his meeting with the assistant commissioner.

‘That man's going to be the death of me. Now he wants a daily written report on the progress of the investigation. I know he's getting pressure from above, but I only have to mention the words “court martial” and he turns green. Luckily he'll be out of our hair for a couple of days . . . some conference in Manchester. Let's try and make the most of it.'

Billy had spent twenty minutes retelling the story that he and Madden had heard from Miss Dauncey's lips that morning. The chief super had listened to him in silence.

‘She thought he might be an artist, but that was only a guess. I've told Poole to check with the Slade – Alma was a student there – and the Royal Academy too, in case they have a list of painters. There's also the London phone book. We'll check that as well, and see if we can find a Colin Finch who knows a Miss Ballard. But it's a common enough name, and we don't know if he even lives in London.'

‘Yes, but
why
?' Chubb returned to his chair. ‘Didn't Madden give you a reason? Does he think this chap is our shooter?'

‘He didn't say so. But then he wouldn't, unless he was certain.'

‘Well then?'

Billy shrugged. ‘I don't think Mr Madden knows himself, not for sure. It's just a feeling he has. There was something about the story she told us, particularly the bit to do with Alma and this bloke Finch, that didn't seem right to him. He didn't buy the idea they'd been lovers. He reckoned it was something else. It's the sort of thing he used to pick up on, when I worked with him. You know as well as I do, sir, in a case like this you collect all sorts of facts, but only a few really matter, and Mr Madden had a gift for spotting them. Not that he always knew why: often it was just something he felt – a sort of instinct, I suppose – though he would have said it was simply a matter of paying attention. That's what he used to tell me.'

Billy chuckled.

‘Antoine . . . He kept repeating that name in the car coming back, like it was supposed to mean something. Antoine.'

‘That was what she called this bloke, right?'

Billy nodded. ‘Miss Dauncey thought it might have been a special name, the kind lovers make up for each other, but like I say, Mr Madden had his doubts.'

‘But he still doesn't know what it meant?'

‘Not yet.' Billy grinned. ‘But if you want to lay money on it, then I'm betting he soon will.'

24

‘I'
VE GOT NOTHING TO
report, sir. I just thought I'd give you a ring before I went home.'

Despite having spent the morning with his old chief, Billy had felt the need to talk to Madden again before the day was out. Just to keep in touch, he told himself. He had rung him at the house in St John's Wood, where the police car had dropped him on their return from Richmond.

‘We still haven't located Finch. He wasn't either a student or a teacher at the Slade, and the Royal Academy has no record of him. We've been through the phone book too, and as far as we can tell he doesn't live in London. We'll have to spread our net wider.'

Madden had been down in the cellar when the phone rang, listening to the contractor, a man called Dakin, explain why they couldn't begin painting the back wall where the damp had been dug out and the wall rebricked. The plaster covering it was still too wet. He had insisted that Madden test it with his hand.

‘It needs another day at least,' Dakin was saying, and the foreman in charge of the works, Milligan, had concurred.

‘I was hoping we might start tomorrow, but Mr Dakin's right. We'll have to wait a bit longer.'

Earlier Madden had accompanied both men upstairs to inspect
the rewiring under way in Aunt Maud's bedroom. Its aged occupant had been moved to her new temporary quarters without incident that afternoon, though the operation had called for the services of both Madden and Alice, each of whom had taken an elbow and supported the old lady as she moved with halting steps down the passage to the room prepared for her. Dakin had pronounced himself satisfied with the progress to date and promised they would be out of Miss Collingwood's hair by the end of the week.

He had arrived in the company of another man, whom he had introduced as an architect working for him on a separate project. And when he and Madden came back downstairs they had found this individual bent over an array of drawings spread out on the kitchen table.

‘That's a new house we're building up in Blenheim Terrace.' Dakin had gestured at the plans as they passed through the kitchen on their way to the basement. ‘The one that was hit by a buzz-bomb in '44 and taken out like a tooth – have you seen it? The houses on either side were hardly scratched.'

It had been a few minutes later, while he was crouching by the back wall obediently testing it with the tips of his fingers, that Madden had heard the phone in the hall start ringing. Shortly afterwards Alice's voice called from the kitchen to say it was the same gentleman from Scotland Yard phoning again.

‘What about the Royal Artillery?' he asked Billy. ‘Have you heard from them?'

‘Not yet. The adjutant said it might take a while. Records of that kind – who was stationed where during the First World War – aren't stored at Woolwich. But he promised to track them down for me.'