The Mannequin House (32 page)

‘You’re not frightened he might be cross when he finds out you’ve put poison out for the monkey? I remember he was cross with you once before.’

‘He has to learn to obey the rules like everyone else.’

‘And you will teach him?’

Miss Mortimer was prevented from answering by the sound of the front door bell.

‘I believe that will be my colleagues with Mr Yeovil and the other mannequins. Could you please let them in and ask them to wait downstairs. Perhaps you could serve tea for everyone?’

‘What do you think this is, a Lyons’ Corner House?’

‘The girls who are in your care have had another very unpleasant shock today. Do you not wish to make sure they’re all right?’

‘Oh, I’ll look after my girls, don’t you worry about that. It’s all these policemen and the like that I object to.’

‘I’m afraid that is an inevitable consequence of murder, Miss Mortimer. Once one starts killing people, one does tend to draw the attention of the police.’

Quinn heard the front door open downstairs. Presumably either Kathleen had answered it or one of the mannequins had produced her own key. In contrast to the mood in the garden a couple of days ago, there was no boisterous shrieking as the mannequins came in. Evidently it required two fatalities to impress them with the chastening gravity of death.

Quinn smiled and nodded to dismiss Miss Mortimer. She took her leave, frowning at his words.

Now that he was alone, he could begin his examination of the room in earnest.

Somehow it made sense to start with the place where, in Amélie’s room, he had found the vital clue of the wooden hairpin, under the bed.

His own body felt heavier than he had ever known it to be; the core of the weight was a knot where he suspected his heart to be. The floor seemed to pull him down.

The bare boards bit into his knees with merciless rigidity.

The gloom beneath a dead girl’s bed is laden with its own quality of despondency. Staring into it, he was faced with a granular blankness. He caught sight of a small object nestling among the fluff clumps at the far side of the bed. It was just beyond his reach.

A strange dread took hold of him. What he feared was not that the solution would remain beyond his grasp, but that in discovering it he would be left staring into an emptiness more terrible than the one he glimpsed now. His job, he had always believed, was to effect restitution on behalf of the dead. But what if restitution was not possible? Certainly it was not possible if he was denied his usual recourse to the law-enforcer’s privilege of violence.

He realized that the killing habit that his superiors lamented was not, as he had so often protested, the result of any number of regrettable accidents; it was the only thing that made sense of it all.

His shins ached, the after-throb of the torment inflicted on him in the lift. He felt it as the focus of the pressure that always built in a case. The pressure that could only be released in one way.

He flattened his chest to the floor and stretched his arm out, fingers splayed to retrieve the object. The first touch sent a jolt of recognition back through his fingertips. Immediate, unmistakable. It was the same kind of cloth-covered box as he had found in Amélie’s room. The same kind of musical box as was on sale in the Locks, Clocks and Mechanical Contrivances department where Spiggott worked.

One more stretch and he locked a pincer of fingers and thumb on to the musical box. He teased it closer so that he was able to strengthen his grip and retrieve it.

His joints creaked as he hauled himself to his feet. He tried to turn the key that was projecting from the side but it was jammed. When he sprang the lid, no sound came out. The tiny ballerina had been snapped off her base.

It was at that point that he realized what was missing from the room.

Sergeant Inchball was waiting for him as he came downstairs. He held out a slip of paper. ‘’E ’ad it on ’im all the time, the lyin’ bastard.’ The preponderance of dropped aitches was again an indication of Inchball’s emotional state.

‘What is it?’

‘Charlie Cale’s report. I thought you ought to see what it said about the key. Coddington couldn’t make head nor tail of it. That’s why he wanted to keep it from you, I’ll warrant. Didn’t want to make himself look stupid in front of you.’

Quinn took the paper and unfolded it. ‘How did you get this?’

‘I have my methods.’

‘Does he know you have it?’

‘Give me some credit.’

Quinn glanced down at the paper. His gaze went immediately to a scaled-up sketch of the trapezium-shaped bow of the key. Charlie Cale had drawn a number of short, horizontal marks coming in from the sides, more or less at the centre of the bow. These marks were continued in drawings of the side sections. He had written the word
striations
.

‘Maybe it don’ mean nothin’,’ said Inchball. ‘But I thought you should see it so you could decide for yourself, guv.’

Quinn read through the notes that Charlie Cale had appended to the sketch. The scientist offered no opinion as to what had caused the marks. His account was technical and almost incomprehensible to Quinn. As far as he could tell, Cale had discovered some loose grains of brass in the microscopic grooves indicated. It seemed to be noteworthy that two types of brass were recovered, each with different proportions of copper and zinc. One formulation matched that of the key itself. The other represented an external source. No explanation for the discrepancy was given.

‘Why would he keep it from me?’

‘Because he wants to be the one who cracks the case. Either that, or he’s too stupid to understand what it means.’ Inchball nodded emphatically, to indicate he tended towards the latter explanation. Then a pall of confusion came over his expression. ‘’Ere, what
does
it mean, guv?’

‘It means . . . at least I think it means . . . I know who killed Amélie.’

‘I thought she killed herself, guv?’

‘That’s what I thought too. But this evidence changes everything. If only he had told me.’ Quinn folded and pocketed the sheet.

The surviving mannequins, Marie-Claude, Giselle, Minette and Michelle, were huddled together on a chaise longue, heads bowed towards a centre of intense whispered communion. It seemed to Quinn, as he entered the drawing room, that Marie-Claude was hissing out instructions.

It was hard to know what to make of this, except that the four hard and heartless girls were at last beginning to feel some measure of guilt for all the misery they had inflicted on their two weaker fellows, both now dead.

The homeliness of the drawing room struck Quinn as a sham; as false as the vignettes presented in the store’s windows. Everything in the room came from Blackley’s, of that he had no doubt. The japanned table, the oversized vases that looked like they had been grown in some kind of ceramic forcing house, the chaise longue that served as a mannequin perch, the deep brown leather armchair into which the mountainous Yeovil was pensively sunk. All of it was, in Quinn’s eyes, contaminated by its source.

Of course, Coddington was there. He strode up to Quinn and led him back out of the room. Just before he left, Quinn caught Macadam’s look of contrition.

‘What’s this all about, Quinn?’

Quinn decided against challenging Coddington over the withheld forensic evidence. There would be time for that later. Besides, he wanted to enjoy the reciprocal pleasure: to experience for himself the obscure sense of power that came from holding back all that he knew. He did not believe that DCI Coddington would have been able yet to reach any meaningful conclusions regarding the forensics report. If he had, he would have hardly refrained from showing off his brilliance and wrapping up the case without Quinn’s involvement. But it was clear that Coddington was very far from putting the pieces together.

In fact, given the evidence Inchball had just shared with him, the experiment Quinn had had in mind was no longer strictly necessary. But he did not, as yet, want to show his hand to Coddington, so he decided to stick to his original plan. At the very least, it would serve to throw Coddington further off the scent. At best, it might provoke a crucial revelation.

‘I want to test a theory.’

‘What theory?’

‘I think these girls know more about what has been going on in this house than they have told us. I think Mr Yeovil can help us to get it out of them. He has certain talents, which Blackley is experimenting with in order to control his staff further. How much more obedient they would be if he could bend their individual wills to his own. Beyond that, perhaps, he may also be interested in influencing the minds and decisions of his customers.’

‘And what has all this to do with the case?’

‘When I was in the garden the other day, Yeovil tried to hypnotize me. He failed, of course. Nevertheless, I believe he may have greater success with more impressionable individuals.’ Quinn refrained from adding:
such as yourself.
‘I believe he may have hypnotized Amélie. Blackley denied it – or at least he denied it was anything to do with him. I want Yeovil to hypnotize one of the other girls.’

‘To what end?’

‘To get her to do something that she would naturally be extremely opposed to – consciously, at least.’

‘Why should he? Won’t he be helping you to build a case against him?’

‘I believe the man’s vanity will not be able to prevent him from doing it.’

DCI Coddington’s moustache jutted forward aggressively. ‘Sergeant Macadam warned me that you were planning something like this.’

‘Oh, he did, did he?’

‘Now don’t go blaming Macadam. He’s only trying to do what’s best for you, believe it or not. He’s trying to protect you.’

‘Protect me? From what?’

‘From yourself.’

Quinn squinted in disbelief. ‘What could possibly go wrong?’

‘Is it really necessary for me to answer that?’

‘We’ll make him think he’s helping us in the case. Perhaps he will be. As I said, these girls are not saying everything they know. I’m damn sure there’s some piece of this jigsaw that I’m missing. Everyone I speak to is holding something back.’

Coddington said nothing. His moustache wriggled uncomfortably.

‘All I’m proposing is that he gets one of them to reveal some detail that she wishes to keep from us. I’m not suggesting he tries to induce her to commit suicide.’

‘I’m very glad to hear it.’

‘We need to make a breakthrough in this case, sir. And we need to make it soon. I think Yeovil can help us.’

Coddington sighed heavily. The question of urgency clearly carried weight with him. ‘Which of the girls will you use?’

Quinn suppressed a smile. For all Coddington’s hobbled indecision, he was as capable of being reckless as Quinn. All that was required was a little prodding. ‘I’ll let Yeovil decide that, I think.’

When they returned to the drawing room, Miss Mortimer was there, distributing cups of tea from a tray of rattling china held by a trembling Kathleen. The mannequins held on to their cups and saucers as if their lives depended on it.

Quinn noticed that the china was the same blue willow pattern as the discarded teapot he had seen on the rubbish heap. It was a common enough design.

‘Mr Yeovil.’ Quinn called the name firmly. A hush settled on the room. But Yeovil didn’t look up. He appeared lost in a trance.

‘Yeovil!’

The second, sharper cry drew his attention. A frightened child – admittedly a very large frightened child – peered up at Quinn, one eye obscured by the white glare in the monocle lens.

‘It’s all right, sir. No need to be alarmed. I didn’t mean to startle you. It’s just that I need your help with something. Mr Blackley has offered your services to the police. The time has come, I think, for us to avail ourselves of them.’

Yeovil had the mannequins stand in a line. He walked from one to the next, staring fixedly into each girl’s eyes. Nothing was said. But as a result of that inspection he tapped Marie-Claude on the shoulder. ‘Not her.’

‘Wha’s wrong wiv me?’ Marie-Claude’s wide face seemed to open up further with injured vanity.

‘Please sit down,’ said Quinn.

Yeovil conducted a second pass along the remaining girls. This time he held up a hand in front of their faces, murmuring something that Quinn could not make out. When he came to the third girl in the line, she leaned forward slowly, until her forehead touched Yeovil’s palm. ‘Her,’ said Yeovil.

The other two returned to the chaise longue, shaking their heads uncomprehendingly. Even Marie-Claude’s belligerence was subdued.

Yeovil looked to Quinn for direction, his face meek and submissive. Since the time he had spent in the back of the Black Maria alone with Sergeant Inchball, the confidence had drained entirely from Mr Blackley’s special legal adviser. Quinn didn’t know what had passed between the two men. And he preferred to keep it that way.

Quinn nodded for Yeovil to continue.

Yeovil removed his monocle and polished it in his handkerchief for some minutes. When he returned the lens to his eye, it seemed that more than just its glassy gleam had been restored. The old Yeovil had snapped back into place.

‘What’s your name, my dear?’

‘Giselle.’

‘Giselle. What a lovely name.’ Yeovil pointed to his newly polished monocle. He shifted the position of his head minutely so that the sunlight constantly flared and vanished, flared and vanished, setting up a regular pulse of light. ‘You see my eyeglass? We call it a monocle, don’t we? Look at the surface of the glass. Can you see how smooth and bright it is?’ The sunlight continued to flicker. ‘Keep your eye focused on my monocle. Don’t look through the monocle. Look at the surface of the monocle. Let your gaze slide unimpeded over the surface of the monocle. Round and round it skates, like a skater on an ice rink. Your gaze skates over the round rink of my monocle. And as you circle the surface of my monocle you fall into a deep, deep, deep trance. You remain awake. You’re able to keep your gaze skating over my monocle, you’re able to hear my words, and at the same time you’re aware of a wonderful feeling of peace and calm and well-being. Can you hear me, Giselle?’