Princes Gate (8 page)

Morgan’s jauntiness disappeared when he saw the trolley.

“Her brother’s certain it’s Joan but I thought you’d better have a look anyway. Do you recognise her?”

Morgan shook his head. “I, I don’t know for sure.” His breath caught as he reached his hand out to the dead girl and then withdrew it sharply without touching.

“Mr Harris recognised this mole. Do you…?”

Morgan continued shaking his head. “Never seen her back, naked like, so I don’t…”

Morgan’s face now had a sallow tinge and Merlin saw that his hands were trembling.

“Very well, no doubt we can get someone else in the family to confirm the identification if we have to.”

Out in the corridor, Joseph Harris was being sick. Bridges had a comforting hand on his shoulder, while with his other hand he tried to manoeuvre a bucket into the line of fire. They waited in embarrassment for him to finish. The morgue attendant produced a glass of water which Harris knocked to the floor. “Don’ want no bloody water. Don’ wan’ nothin’ but fer you people to leave me alone. No ’uman dignity in there, is there? Jus’ a slab of meat. Poor lil’ Joanie.”

He’d seen plenty of dead bodies of course. Plenty of messy ones too. In the Somme he’d seen scores of men blown to smithereens by shells or shot to pieces. One of his best mates had had his head blown off right next to him. One second Archie was shaking his head with laughter at some awful joke Merlin had made and the next he had no head to shake. He’d seen all sorts of death in his years as a policeman – men and women strangled, knifed, poisoned, battered to death. From the physical viewpoint, as bodies went, Joan Harris’ wasn’t too awful – the ravages of a few days in the river, some bruises and now of course the stitched-up incisions of a pathologist. Even so, it never got any easier, and the young ones were the most upsetting, however damaged. Most upsetting of all, of course, was Alice’s. She’d lost weight but in fact she hadn’t looked that bad at the end. A good-looking corpse, if there was such a thing.

Merlin shook his head, slapped his left hand with his right and refocused on his plate. He gazed unenthusiastically at his meat and veg. His appetite had disappeared. The Sergeant, however, seemed to have had few difficulties with his steak and kidney pudding and was now polishing off a large piece of treacle tart, oblivious to his boss’s self-flagellation. Merlin took a deep breath.

“So what do we know about this poor woman, Joan Harris? A nice, cheerful, country girl, betters herself by taking a secretarial course and elocution lessons. Escapes a poor country family. Obtains what, for her, must have been a very exciting job with the American Ambassador, which she gets just after Mr Kennedy takes up his post in, er, when was that?”

“March nineteen thirty-eight, sir.”

“Right. And despite her humble background, she turns out to be a star turn of a secretary. A Paganini of the typewriter in fact.”

“Paga – who sir?”

“A virtuoso violinist, Sam. Never mind. Anyway, she lives in what I guess are modest lodgings in Hammersmith.”

“Yes, sir.” Bridges finished off the last piece of tart and sighed with satisfaction.

“She’s sociable. She’s pretty ‘in a common sort of way’, as Miss Edgar puts it. I’d be surprised if she didn’t have a boyfriend or boyfriends. Being good at her job, senior Embassy officials request her specifically for typing work, and she’s fully cleared in security terms, so will no doubt have seen a lot of confidential stuff.”

“Think there’s a security angle here?”

“The girl must have had access to some very interesting information. Information that people might pay a lot of money for, or information that people might be very unhappy to see revealed.”

The bear-like owner of the café moseyed up to the table. “I might have to charge you two gentlemen rent, the amount of time you’re spending in my place. You need anything else, no?”

Tony bent to mop the table, brushing remnants of the day’s food into Bridges’ lap.

“Hey!”

“Sorry, Mr Sam. I give you two teas on the house. Is alright?”

“Another time, thanks.”

Merlin started to make notes. “Johnny Morgan. He should be useful. Bit of a ladies’ man, I should think. He could help us as regards Joan Harris’ love life, as could her friend Kathleen Donovan. We’ll need to interview all Miss Harris’ colleagues in the typing pool and any other work friends we identify. Also the people she worked for.”

“All of them?”

“Let’s make it simpler for ourselves to begin with and just identify the ones who particularly requested her services. That Norton chap for a start. He seemed a little fishy to me. Get the other names from Miss Edgar.”

“Right, sir.”

“If you make a start with the interviews, I’d like to go and take a look at where Miss Harris lived and speak to her landlady. Did you get her name?”

“Mrs Bowen.” Bridges handed over a piece of paper on which he had written Joan’s address.

Merlin rose, picked up his hat and set it at a rakish angle.

“Off you go then. I’m going to pop back to the Yard first to check on a few other things. Then I’ll head to Hammersmith and after that join you at Princes Gate.”

“Chief Inspector?”

Merlin recognised the A.C.’s bark on the telephone.

“Yes, sir.”

“Could you come up to my office straight away?”

After a moment’s consideration, he supposed that he could.

He trudged up the stairs. At her station by the A.C.’s door, his ancient secretary raised her pencil-black eyebrows as she bashed away on her typewriter.

“You’re looking as beautiful as ever today, Miss S. The A.C. asked to see me.”

“Better not keep him waiting then.” Miss Stimpson’s beady eyes glinted. “He hasn’t had any lunch today and I suspect you’ll do nicely.”

Assistant Commissioner Gatehouse stood, arms behind his back, gazing out at the river. He was wearing his normal uniform of dark jacket, striped trousers, wing-collar and one of his abundant collection of sombre ties. Merlin was relieved to see that no unpleasant red blotches decorated the A.C.’s cheeks as they had on the occasion of their last interview. Initial signs indicated that he might be in a moderately good mood.

“I gather you’ve made some progress on the Barnes case.” Merlin wondered at the speed of the Yard grapevine.

“We’ve identified the girl. An employee of the American Ambassador.”

“Any suspects yet?”

Merlin thought of answering “Of course not, you idiot, we only identified the girl an hour or so ago,” but good sense prevailed. “No, sir. We are just about to undertake interviews of friends and staff.”

“Better go careful on the staff side, Chief Inspector. Don’t want to upset our American friends at this delicate period.”

“How do you mean? I’ve got to investigate the girl’s work and social relationships at the Embassy.”

The Assistant Commissioner stretched his arms before sitting in an uncomfortable-looking armchair by the window. He waved his hand at another chair which Merlin took. His eye was caught by a new photograph on the A.C.’s desk. A nice-looking girl with long blonde hair. “Of course you have, Frank. All I mean is go carefully. We don’t want any diplomatic incidents, so to speak.”

“That’s hardly likely. The Ambassador is currently back in the United States, and I don’t believe he is expected to return for some time. I am investigating an employee of pretty low standing in the Ambassador’s entourage, and I can’t really see any chance of a diplomatic incident. Of course, however unlikely it appears at the outset, there may be some security aspect in the case and I shall naturally be cautious in my approach to such areas.”

“That’s all I meant, Frank.” The A.C.’s mouth opened in an approximation of a smile, revealing a set of mottled brown teeth. “We have to remember that the attitude of the American government to Great Britain, and its potential to provide assistance to us in this damned war, is of crucial importance. However unlikely it may be, we don’t want the murder of an insignificant girl to queer the pitch in any way, do we?”

Merlin couldn’t help visibly bridling at this.

“Insignificant, sir? Are you saying you don’t want me to properly investigate the murders of ‘insignificant’ people while the war’s on?”

The A.C.’s cheeks flushed. “You know that’s not what I meant. Just go carefully, that’s all.”

Merlin counted silently to ten.

“Very well. If you don’t mind my asking, what is the current view in government circles of the American Ambassador?”

“Just what you’d expect. The honoured representative of our greatest ally. A man to be respected.”

“Really? Is that still appropriate when we know he’s been an arch-appeaser and tells all and sundry that Britain hasn’t got a hope in hell in this war?”

“I can’t really get into that, Chief Inspector. If you’re asking me what the government thinks of Mr Kennedy, may I remind you that Mr Neville Chamberlain is still the head of the government, and that Mr Chamberlain was the architect of what some people call the appeasement policy and what others call the pragmatic policy in dealings with Germany. This same Mr Chamberlain has been on pretty chummy terms with Mr Kennedy since his arrival in ’thirty-eight. Anyway, what the devil has this got to do with your case?”

“Probably nothing sir. I just wanted to know a little more about the lie of the land at the Embassy. Best to know the lie of the land, I think, when you’re trying to avoid diplomatic incidents.”

The A.C. produced another sickly smile and got to his feet. “Very well. Any word on how Johnson’s getting on, by the way? This chap who was run over was some sort of scientific adviser. The Ministry of Defence have been on, worrying about there being some sort of foul play.”

“I haven’t seen Johnson for a couple of days. When I get a chance I’ll try and get a full progress report. Now I have to get on with my investigation. Will that be all?”

The A.C. grunted. As Merlin passed Miss Stimpson he gave her what he intended to be an enigmatic smile.

Having heard that there was some traffic hold-up on the Cromwell Road, Merlin crossed to the south bank of the river. Traffic was sparse and he reached Hammersmith Bridge in less than half-an-hour. He stopped for a moment on the bridge and got out of the car. The river was still iced over in many parts. Some river traffic was edging its way with difficulty through the baby icebergs. A gaily-painted river barge glided down the centre of the river and he wondered whether the unidentified boatmen who had been on the river when Joan Harris’ body was found were at work today. He stared up at the gloomy overcast sky and the barrage balloons hovering above the bridge. The A.C.’s approach to the case worried him. What did it matter that Joan was ‘insignificant’? So the case might cause the A.C. political problems if it proved embarrassing in some way for the US embassy. So what? He didn’t give a damn for the defeatist Kennedy, or indeed for that stuffed-shirt Chamberlain, whom Hitler had comprehensively hoodwinked. Nothing should stand in the way of a murder investigation, however lowly the victim. No doubt Joan’s fate would seem unimportant in the greater scheme of things whenever the Luftwaffe got round to bombing London, but that was nothing to him. It was his job to seek out the truth behind her death, regardless.