Gun Street Girl (17 page)

‘You must excuse me now, Mr Sharman. I have lots to do.'

‘Want a hand?'

‘Thank you, no.'

I knew when I wasn't wanted and took my cup upstairs. The door to the conservatory was taped off and another uniform was leaning against the wall outside. I went into the drawing room and out onto the paved patio. It was already hot and the early mist had all but evaporated. A tarp had been stretched over the conservatory roof and the blinds drawn. I lit a cigarette and perched on the low wall that separated the levels of the patio and drank my coffee.

I ground out the cigarette and had a sudden feeling I was being watched. I shivered involuntarily under my shirt and turned slowly to look up the back wall of the house. The sunlight bounced off the windows and made me squint but on the second floor I thought I saw a face at one of the windows. I looked again and the face was gone.

I took my cup back into the drawing room and left it on the table there and went looking for life. I knocked on Elizabeth's sitting-room door. She answered and I opened it. She was sitting in the bright sunlight in front of an open bureau writing in a leather-covered book. Newspapers were scattered over the sofa. She closed the book when she saw me and turned in her seat to face me. ‘Good morning,' I said.

‘Is it?'

‘How's Catherine?'

‘Not so good. I called out her doctor last night. She was close to a breakdown. He gave her something to make her sleep. If she's no better this morning, I'm to call him again. Christ, what a mess.'

‘I had visitors last night,' I said.

‘What kind of visitors?'

‘Friends of Catherine's.'

‘What do you mean? What kind of friends?'

‘Bad friends with guns. Bad friends who killed Leee.' I took the bullet that the Australian with the gun had thrown onto the table out of my pocket. ‘Bad friends who left this as a warning. And one of the bad friends was named Lorimar, and he knows Catherine, In fact, according to him, she owes him money on some kind of deal.'

Elizabeth's face paled.

‘Did you know that she knew Lorimar?' I asked.

‘No.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Of course I'm sure.'

‘I'd hate to think you've been having me on, Elizabeth. Someone's been lying and I want to know who. My visitors gave me a message for Catherine. I need to talk to her, to both of you.'

‘Not now, Catherine is resting. She's not up to it yet. There are reporters crawling all over the place. The papers are full of it. Murder, cross-dressing. They're having a field day.'

‘Who can blame them?' I said. ‘Imagine what they'd make of my visitors.'

Her face went even paler if that were possible. ‘You won't,' she said.

I shook my head. ‘No. You can trust me.'

‘I knew I could,' she said. ‘We'll talk later, I promise.'

‘Okay, I'll wait, but I don't like waiting. What's on your agenda this morning?'

‘The police are coming back at eight. The conservatory is going to be cleaned and repaired as soon as possible and we'll get back to normal.'

‘Do you think you ever will?' I said. ‘I don't want to talk to the law. They gave me a hard enough time last night. I'm going out. I've got to do some thinking. I'll be back later to speak to Catherine, ready or not.' I got up and left the room without waiting for a reply.

I let gravity carry me downstairs and met Miranda on the first-floor landing. ‘How are you feeling?' I asked.

‘Awful,' she replied. ‘I want to get away from here.'

‘I know how you feel.'

Her face puckered as she remembered. ‘There was so much blood,' she said.

‘Try not to think about it.' I touched her arm. ‘You shouldn't be working today. Can't you get some time off?'

‘I could, but the place is a shambles and I don't want to leave the family.'

I didn't know what to say to that, so I said nothing. ‘I need some air,' I told her. ‘I'm going for a walk.'

‘You can't go out the front. There are reporters and photographers and TV cameras all over the place.'

‘I'll use the back way.'

‘Mr Courtneidge has already chased some reporters away from there too. They were going through the dustbins.'

‘That's about their speed,' I said. ‘They won't bother me.' But I didn't want to meet them. I didn't want to meet anyone. ‘What time do you make it?' I asked.

She looked at her wristwatch. ‘Seven o'clock.'

‘Do me a favour. Go downstairs and at exactly five past open the front door. Don't go out or show yourself. Just keep the door open for a minute or two, okay?'

‘Why?'

‘Anyone at the back will come running and I can slip away.'

‘All right, Mr Sharman.'

‘You're an angel, Miranda. I'll owe you one.'

We went down to the hall and Miranda waited while I went down to the kitchen where the smell of bacon frying filled the air. I went out and squeezed past the dustbins. I looked through the railings and there were three guys hanging around smoking and chatting. Two of them had cameras round their necks. I looked at my watch and right on time there was a shout from the end of the mews where it entered Curzon Street. The three newsmen legged it across the cobbles. I smiled and ducked out and away in the opposite direction.

I went back to the park. On the way I bought a copy of every morning paper, a cheese sandwich and a black coffee in a styrofoam cup from an entrepreneurial newsagent cum snack bar behind the Hilton. I wandered across to the Serpentine and sat on a bench. I looked at the headlines and drank the coffee and investigated the inside of the sandwich, which was none too clever.

All the late editions of the papers had the story; the tabloids, with the exception of the Pike publications, had it splashed across their front pages. They made a meal of it, too. I found the news as hard to digest as the food I'd bought so I ended up trashing the linens and feeding the processed bread and cheese to the ducks. The coffee wasn't bad, though. I smoked halfway through a pack of Silk Cut as the sun burned across the sky and thought about what had happened the previous night.

I was as jumpy as fuck and well pissed off with everyone with the surname Pike by the time I heard a clock strike eleven somewhere off towards Queensway. I got up and went looking for a boozer. I ended up at a big old gin palace at Scotch Corner. It was empty and anonymous and the staff didn't give a toss about the customers. That suited me down to the ground, except that the beer was warm and about as expensive as they could get away with without being tarred and feathered and run out of Knightsbridge on a rail.

I watered the Becks down with ice until it was drinkable and sat in a quiet corner. As I finished the pack of cigarettes I watched the drinkers rotate in shifts from tourists to grannies on shopping trips to Harrod's, to the wage slaves on their strict lunchtimes. When it got too crowded to move I split back into the one o'clock heat.

I walked across the edge of the park to Curzon Street where there was still a crowd of monkeys with cameras and portable phones and minicams and even the occasional anachronism of a real notebook and well-chewed pencil camped outside the house. I doubled back down to the mews avoiding a couple of hacks, and jumped over the railings before I could be immortalised on film or video.

I went into the coolness of the basement and through to the kitchen where Miranda was standing in front of the oven stirring something savoury in a Teflon saucepan.

‘Oh, you're back are you? The police have been looking everywhere for you.'

‘They seek him here, they seek him there,' I said.

‘You're cheerful.'

‘Six bottles of Becks. It'll do it every time.'

‘Are you drunk?'

‘Miranda, you should get that put on tape.'

‘Funny.'

‘Not one of my best. Are the Old Bill still around?'

‘I think the detectives have gone but there's still an ordinary policeman in the conservatory.'

‘Good,' I said. I didn't want to see Endesleigh or his sidekick for a bit. ‘What about Catherine and Elizabeth?'

‘They're up in Miss Elizabeth's sitting room. I'm making them some soup for lunch.'

‘I'll take it up.'

‘No, you mustn't.'

‘It's okay, trust me.'

‘All right,' she said eventually. ‘But if you get me into trouble … '

There was an answer to that one but I let it go. ‘It'll be okay, I promise. I can handle those two.' At least I hoped I could.

‘It's Mr Courtneidge I'm worried about,' she said.

‘Where is he?'

‘Having a nap. He was up very early and did everything himself this morning. He's dead on his feet.'

An unfortunate choice of expression I thought, but I didn't mention it. ‘No problem then,' was what I did say.

She smiled and pulled a conspirational face. ‘Go on then.'

‘Thanks, and thanks for the diversion this morning. It worked like a charm.'

‘Good. I hate those newspaper people. They only want to cause trouble.'

I agreed and watched as she put the soup into a small tureen which she placed on an already prepared tray set with a creamy white cloth, two soup plates, cutlery, a wicker basket of fresh rolls and a china tub of butter. I picked up the whole shebang which, I might add, weighed a ton and made me think that Miranda and Constance must have been stronger than they looked, and took the servants' lift to the second floor. I walked down the corridor. Balancing the tray on one arm, I knocked on Elizabeth's sitting-room door and entered. Elizabeth and Catherine were both on the sofa, deep in conversation. ‘Leave the tray on the table,' said Elizabeth without looking up. ‘We'll ring when we're finished.'

‘Don't let it get cold,' I said.

They both looked up as if they'd been goosed.

‘Where the hell have you been and what do you think you're doing with that?' said Elizabeth with an edge of anger in her voice.

‘Just saving the staff a job and I told you I was going out. I was finding the atmosphere a little oppressive in here.'

‘The police are looking for you,' said Elizabeth.

‘So I understand.'

‘I suppose they should have combed the local pubs,' said Catherine nastily. She was changing her tune. Obviously Elizabeth had told her about my midnight callers.

‘I'm cut to the quick,' I said back. ‘But as a matter of fact I did drop in for a livener.'

‘More than one, by the sound of it.' Catherine again.

‘As if it's any of your business.'

‘We're paying you,' said Elizabeth.

‘That's another matter. Before we go into all that, I think you've got something to tell me.'

The two women seated on the sofa looked at each other.

‘Well, come on,' I said impatiently. ‘Spit it out.'

‘What do you want to know?' said Elizabeth.

‘Why the chicken crossed the road!' I said. ‘What the hell do you think I want to know? I want to know what I'm doing here.'

‘Trying to bully us,' Elizabeth retorted.

‘And obviously not succeeding,' I said. ‘Okay, let's take it one step at a time. You told me when you hired me that maybe, just maybe, your father's death wasn't the suicide it was supposed to be. You told me that Catherine was scared, of what you didn't know. You also let me believe she was a sweet, hard-done-by soul, pure as the driven. Now I discover that she was involved all along with someone who was being paid a great deal of money by your late father. So, Catherine, dear, sweet, hard-done-by soul, tell me about it.'

‘It's not what you think,' said Catherine.

‘Who said I think anything?' I asked. ‘And who is this cat Lorimar?'

‘One of those men I told you about, my mother's men,' replied Catherine.

‘And what is he?'

‘Anything he wants to be. A thief, a murderer, a con man. He was working the resort hotels when my mother met him.'

‘Doing what exactly?'

‘Like I said, anything. Scamming, stealing from rooms. Bunco, anything.'

‘And why did Sir Robert start paying him?'

‘My mother told Lorimar the whole story one night when she was drunk. He was a good listener. He had to be, doing what he did. He got in touch with my father and threatened to make the matter public.'

‘Did your mother know?'

‘Of course. I think she actively encouraged him. I told you she hated my father. And we were always broke, even with the money my father sent to us. A little extra didn't hurt.'

‘Naughty old mum.'

‘But when Elizabeth's mother died, it all stopped,' she went on.

‘Not quite. Lorimar said something about a deal last night. A deal with you. What kind of deal was that?'

‘I can't tell you.'

‘Yes you can.'

‘No.'

‘Was it something to do with why you disappeared after your mother died?'

She wouldn't look at me.

‘It was, wasn't it?' I pressed.

‘It was something that happened after I took off,' she said and tears filled her eyes.

I was getting bored with tears. ‘Tell me, Catherine,' I said.

‘I can't.'

‘Of course you can.'

There was a long silence in the room. I watched a fly banging its head against the window. I sympathised. I knew how it felt.

‘All right,' said Catherine at last. ‘My mother was a drunk and an easy lay. She was running with all sorts of bad company before she died, Lorimar included. He was the last and the worst. I was just a kid and didn't understand, or maybe I did. I told you I had to grow up fast. In some things I was very mature, in others not at all. All I knew was that I hated the people, the men who hung around my mother. They were always trying to get her to go out or pass out from the booze and try it on with me. I told you I was twelve when I lost my virginity. I was raped. Mother wouldn't listen. She wouldn't hear a word against her friends. She didn't believe me, or chose not to. It was horrible.