The Mannequin House (14 page)

Inchball had no patience for such illegality. ‘Oi, oi, oi, oi! Put that back! Yeah, I saw you!’

‘What’s it go’ ’a do wiv you?’

‘What’s it got to do with me? I’ll tell you what it’s got to do with me, missus. I’m a policeman, that’s what it’s got to do with me. And so’s he. And so’s he. So if you fancy a little trip down the nick, then carry on. Otherwise, hop it.’

The counter cleared.

‘Thank you so much,’ said the salesman, dabbing away perspiration from his forehead and temples.

‘S’all righ’. Just doing my job.’

‘I’ve never seen them like this. It’s as if they are possessed. Something ugly has got into them.’

‘You on your own here today, mate?’

‘Yes. Spiggott hasn’t turned up.’

‘Spiggott?’

‘He’s my assistant.’

‘Young feller, is he?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Don’t you have anyone else to help you, Mr . . .?’

‘Anderson. No. It’s just me and Spiggott.’

‘And Spiggott ain’ here?’

‘No.’

‘What’s he like, this Spiggott?’

Anderson pulled a face.

‘A waste of space?’ volunteered Inchball.

Anderson contented himself with: ‘Well, he isn’t here, is he?’

‘Lazy.’

‘He’s filled his head with too many . . .’ Mr Anderson removed his pince-nez from his nose, as if this would help him find the word he was groping for. ‘Ideas.’

‘What sort of ideas?’ asked Quinn.

‘Ideas above his station. If he would only concentrate on what he’s supposed to be doing. On his job . . . And forget all these other . . .’ Anderson waved his pince-nez around, again hunting for the
mot juste
. It turned out to be the same one. ‘Ideas.’

‘He’s ambitious, is he?’ said Quinn.

‘Oh, ambitious doesn’t come into it.’

‘Ambitious but lazy,’ said Macadam. ‘Not a good combination.’

‘So the lazy bleeder din’ turn up for work this morning,’ summarized Inchball.

‘In point of fact, he went missing yesterday. He turned up for work in the morning as usual, but when the news of that poor girl’s death became known he grew exceedingly distracted.’

‘’E did, did ’e?’ said Inchball suspiciously. He gave a terse nod to Quinn, as if he believed this detail settled the matter conclusively.

‘Oh, we all did. It was terrible. The whole world went mad. And then they started coming.’ Anderson held his pince-nez up to his eyes and peered fearfully through the lenses towards the surging throng around them. ‘Rather macabre, if you ask me.’

‘And Spiggott was affected too, was he?’ asked Quinn, his voice eager.

‘Yes, but it was different with him.’ The pince-nez was back in place.

‘In what way?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. It’s hard to say.’ Anderson’s hand went back up to the pince-nez. He hesitated, torn between taking it off again and leaving it where it was. ‘Well, he was angry. Everyone else was infected with a kind of . . .’ The pince-nez was back in his hand. ‘Well, glee. It’s the only word for it. But Spiggott was angry. Then again, Spiggott is always angry.’

‘So what happened?’

‘I don’t really know. I mean, I was very busy myself, you understand. I had a lot on my plate. But I was aware of his not being here quite as much as he might be. It was a source of frustration to me, as you can imagine. I had determined to speak to him about it. But by the middle of the afternoon he was nowhere to be seen. After closing time I went to look for him in the usual places. To give him a piece of my mind, you understand. I made enquiries among his associates but no one knew where he was. This morning it was the same. Mr Davies, who has the bed next to him in his dorm, informed me that he did not sleep there last night. So I’m afraid I had no choice but to report his absence. He’s going to be in a lot of trouble when he comes back, I can tell you that.’

Quinn nodded, almost absent-mindedly. His attention was caught by a large clockwork automaton of a Columbine, fashioned from burnished brass. It was about a third life-size. The toy, if toy it could be called, was performing incessant, identical pirouettes. He found himself wondering if Miss Latterly would like it.

Anderson noticed his interest. ‘A very fine piece. Are you a connoisseur of automata?’

‘Not exactly. How much is this piece?’

‘That? Oh, that is seven guineas.’

‘To be honest, I was looking for something a little smaller,’ said Quinn quickly. ‘A music box, for instance.’

‘Our musical boxes are over here. They are considerably smaller, as you can see. And cheaper.’

‘Do you have anything with a dancing ballerina? Perhaps one that plays the theme to
Swan Lake
?’

‘Why, yes, indeed! And very popular it is too.’

Mr Anderson opened the back of a glass display cabinet and pulled out an identical musical box to the one which Quinn had found in Amélie’s room.

Quinn took it and examined it as if he were considering it for a gift. ‘It’s very nice. And how much is it?’

‘Two and six.’

‘Yes, that’s more what I had in mind.’ Quinn nevertheless handed the box back. ‘Did Mr Spiggott ever purchase such a music box, do you know? There is a discount scheme for staff, I believe.’

‘Spiggott?’

‘Is he a connoisseur of such things?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘What is his area of expertise then? Locks perhaps? Or clocks?’

‘I am not sure that he can be said to have an area of expertise. Though, of course, like all young men, he considered himself to be an expert on everything. You could not tell him anything.’

‘I know exactly what you mean. Well, Mr Anderson, we are very desirous to speak to Mr Spiggott. Do you have any idea where he might have gone? Back into the bosom of his family, for example?’

‘Spiggott and I never talked of such things. Ours was a professional relationship.’

‘You mentioned a Mr Davies. Where will we find him?’

‘Davies? He’s upstairs in Soft Furnishings.’

The sea of customers surged around them. A new wave crashed into the Locks, Clocks and Mechanical Contrivances department. They moved like all crowds do, driven by an unconscious, collective will, dividing around obstacles, filling whatever spaces were available to them. Seizing with spontaneous delight upon whatever was presented to them.

Quinn, Macadam and Inchball found themselves prised away from the counter. A look of panic flashed across Anderson’s face as they left them to it, King Canute against an importunate tide.

‘So,’ said Macadam. ‘He’s done a bunk. Reckon he’s our man, sir?’

‘Why else would he run off?’ demanded Inchball belligerently.

‘There may be all sorts of reasons,’ said Quinn. ‘It doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s guilty.’

‘He works with locks,’ pointed out Macadam reasonably. ‘Perhaps he had the know-how to rig the room up so that it appeared to be locked from the inside.’

Quinn considered this briefly. ‘I got the impression, from what Anderson said, that Spiggott would lack the skill. He’s just a salesman. You don’t need to understand how locks work to sell them.’

‘Maybe he just wanted Anderson to think that?’ speculated Macadam.

‘Spiggott hides his light under a bushel?’ wondered Quinn.

‘Yes. Or maybe, like many men of the older generation, Anderson is in the habit of belittling his junior colleague. It’s possible he underestimates Spiggott’s qualities, either through ignorant prejudice or deliberately, because he feels threatened by the young man’s ambition and talent.’

‘Possibly.’ Quinn noticed that Macadam was staring pointedly at Inchball. The difference in the sergeants’ ages could only have been a few years, perhaps as little as eighteen months. He was not even sure who was the senior and who the junior; but it seemed that Macadam was very conscious of a disparity.

‘And there is the music box to take into account,’ said Quinn. ‘I found one in Amélie’s room identical to the one Anderson showed me. Although Anderson was not aware of Spiggott buying one, he may have taken it at some time while Anderson was away from the counter.’

‘Do you fancy Spiggott for the killer then?’ Inchball pressed.

Quinn looked around cautiously. He remembered how an inadvertent word from Coddington had disseminated the story of the monkey-murderer. It was not inconceivable that there were journalists mingling with the crowds at Blackley’s today. ‘I’m certainly anxious to speak to Mr Spiggott, so that we can rule him out from our investigation.’

‘He done it!’ cried Inchball. ‘Why else would he do a runner?’

‘I’m not so sure,’ said Quinn, lowering his voice in the hope that it would encourage Inchball to do the same. ‘According to Anderson, Spiggott disappeared after the news of Amélie’s murder became widely known. If he was the murderer and he wished to flee, wouldn’t he be more likely to do so at the time of the actual murder? That is to say, the night before Amélie’s death came to light?’

Inchball shrugged. ‘I dunno. Maybe he panicked. Thought he could bluff it out, but when it came down to it, when he started to feel the heat, he couldn’t handle it. Everybody talkin’ about it. Maybe somebody remembered he’d been round to the mannequin house. So he scarpered to avoid answering any awkward questions.’

‘At any rate, we need to find him,’ said Quinn. ‘In order to put those awkward questions to him.’

‘They should have his family details in the personnel office,’ said Macadam. ‘Perhaps there’s an address. A next of kin. The offices are in the basement, I believe. Would you like me to go down and take a look, sir?’

‘Thank you, Macadam.’

That was all the command that Sergeant Macadam required.

‘Inchball, I want you to go upstairs to the Soft Furnishings department and see if you can get anything out of this Davies fellow. Find out if he can vouch for Spiggott’s whereabouts on Tuesday night. I would also like to know more about these
ideas
of Spiggott’s. And of course, any information about his possible whereabouts now would be most welcome.’

Inchball grimaced. ‘With respect an’ all that, guv, today ain’ the best day to talk to any o’ these shop people. I mean, look at it.’

‘On the contrary, the pressures they face may prompt them to be less than guarded. Davies may let something important slip without even realizing it.’

‘And what will you be doin’, guv, if you don’ mind me askin’?’

Quinn glanced towards the Menagerie. ‘I need to see a man about a monkey.’

Q
uinn didn’t like the way the parrot was eyeing him up. It was looking askance at him, there was no other way of putting it. Getting the measure of him with a nasty sidelong stare.

The parrot is the most ill-mannered of birds. A feathered lout. This one squawked and wolf-whistled before showing Quinn its arse and squirting out a calculated insult.

It had to be said that Quinn didn’t like anything about the parrot. He didn’t like its stilted sideways shuffle along the perch, or its vicious hooked beak, or the self-righteous way it fluffed up its dirty grey neck feathers. Clearly it considered itself to be better than Quinn.

But the thing he liked least about it was its eye. Quinn felt an instinctual revulsion towards small eyes and the creatures that possessed them. It might be called a prejudice, except that he only realized he possessed this aversion now, staring into the glassy surface of one of the parrot’s abhorrently diminutive eyes. It was too primitive an organ to be comprehended by a complex large-eyed being such as himself. The antipathy he felt was therefore quite natural.

It wasn’t an eye; it was a tiny black lacquered stud. Everything evil in the world was concentrated into it.

He experienced his hatred as an overriding impulse to wring the creature’s neck.

‘May I help you?’

It was a relief to turn and gaze into the eyes of a human being, to see there a gentle despondency, the intimation of fellow feeling, of suffering, and therefore sympathy. The sales assistant was aged somewhere in his forties, with a leanness of figure that hinted at an active life. The animals kept him on his toes, it seemed. But there was a sense, too, that the spring had gone from his step in recent years.

However, his expression lacked the harassed fatigue of his colleague in Locks, Clocks and Mechanical Contrivances. Although there was a constant trickle of shoppers going through the Menagerie – an offshoot of the main torrent that flooded the store – the department seemed to be one of the least crowded. Perhaps this was because all the goods it sold – the animals, in other words – were locked away in cages. It was a less attractive prospect to would-be shoplifters.

The inconvenience of a living souvenir also probably contributed to the area’s relative unpopularity. It was one thing walking off with a pilfered trinket from the store where a famous murdered mannequin had worked. It was another thing entirely taking home a terrapin, or some other creature that would either have to be cared for and fed for years to come; or allowed to die and put out with the rubbish.

‘I see you are admiring our African grey.’

‘No,’ said Quinn hastily.

The salesman ignored the denial. ‘Appropriately enough, as she’s called Miranda.’ He smiled at his own wit, a momentary lifting of the sadness that seemed to possess him. ‘She’s a very clever mimic, you know.’

Not quite managing to prove the point, a grotesque, empty parody of human speech came back at them: ‘
Mick! Mick! Clever Mick!
’

‘I’m looking for something a little quieter. Perhaps a monkey. A macaque, for instance.’ Quinn could not say why he chose to initiate his inquiries in this way. He knew this about himself: when left to his own devices he often resorted to subterfuge, even when there was nothing obvious to be gained. It was second nature, part of his defensive armoury, by which he sought to conceal the uncomfortable truths that shaped his psyche, even from himself. Deceit was his emotional carapace.

That’s not to say the question was an out and out lie. He still had it in mind to buy a gift for Miss Latterly. An idle, absurd fantasy flickered into life in the picture palace of his imagination: the image of him presenting her with a monkey in a cage. Would this be all it took to win her over?